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Even though Samsung Electronics (SEC) made noises early this year about a flexible display product to be delivered in late 2013, the company again disappointed by not exhibiting devices with integrated flexible displays at the 2013 IFA. If the 2012 IFA showcased products that were geared to stimulate markets by introducing UHD TVs and tablet type notebook PCs, the 2013 IFA continued the strategy by showing smart devices like tablets with connectivity, the long anticipated smart watch and UHD TVs in multiple sizes, including 4K curved and flat AMOLED TV prototypes. But the integration of flexible displays into real products was nowhere to be seen and is likely delayed until at least 2014.
As SEC announced at the opening of 2013 IFA, there was no device with flexible displays at the 2013 IFA. SEC did show the new Galaxy NOTE 3 featuring a rigid 5.7” (not flexible) full HD (1920 x 1080) Super AMOLED display, with a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 3GB RAM, 3200mAh battery. The new Galaxy NOTE features 8.3mm of thinness and 168g of weight.
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Despite of rumors that SEC would showcase the bendable AMOLED display at the 2013 IFA, the company demonstrated its first Smart wristwatch equipped with a rigid AMOLED display. SEC’s wearable Smart wristwatch named Galaxy Gear is equipped with a 1.63” AMOLED display with 320 x 320 resolution (289 ppi), 1.5GHz Dual core Exynos 4212, Android4.1 Jellybean, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0. The 1.8 mega pixel camera is integrated in the wrist belt of the watch. The wristwatch and the Smartphone are connected via Bluetooth so the basic phone calling/receiving function is available. It weighs 73.8g (0.16Ib). The battery lasts 25 hours so the device needs daily recharging. MSRP is USD $299.
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Both devices will be released on September 25th worldwide.
We had been expecting a highly stylized device similar to the prototype in Figure 3, but were disappointed.
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Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) is rumored to be implementing a new type of thin film encapsulation to replace the Vitex system, which has a very high TACT and is very expensive. Perhaps, SDC is waiting for the new encapsulation system to release a product. LG Display, which is also rumored to be releasing a flexible display product did not show any flexible display products.
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