Samsung’s foldable phones are among the best you can buy, but they all suffer from an annoying issue: when you fully unfold the device, there’s a visible crease down the middle, where the hinge mechanism resides.
This may change with the next generation of Samsung’s foldable flagship, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. Korean outlet Naver(Opens in a new tab) (via SamMobile(Opens in a new tab)), claims that Samsung has implemented a “waterdrop” design for the phone’s hinge, allowing it to be completely flat when unfolded, and without a noticeable gap between its halves when folded.
New hinge, new look.
Credit: Korean Intellectual Property Office via Naver
Samsung actually has a patent for the waterdrop-shaped hinge, granted in 2016, and now the company appears to finally be ready to apply it on one of its foldable smartphones.
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If the report is accurate, Samsung wouldn’t be the first to have such a hinge on a foldable phone. For example, Motorola Razr 2022 has a similar design, and it has almost no crease(Opens in a new tab) when unfolded. But Samsung sells a lot more foldable phones(Opens in a new tab) than any other company, so this is a big deal (if you like fully flat displays).
The report doesn’t mention anything about Samsung’s other foldables, but it’s reasonable to expect that the company will eventually integrate the waterdrop-shaped display in all its foldable phones.
It’s going to be a pretty long wait until we get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, though. Its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Fold 4, came out in August 2022, so the new version will probably be out in a similar time frame this year.
