Samsung shows phones that roll, slide and expand

Samsung Display has given the press its first look inside a previously closed display lab in South Korea, where it showed a batch of smartphone concepts that push beyond the current Galaxy Z Fold, Flip and Galaxy Z TriFold.

CNET’s Abrar Al-Heeti visited Samsung’s global headquarters in June and saw prototypes mounted on rigs that repeatedly bent, folded and rolled the displays. Samsung did not share specifications, but the concepts point to how the company is thinking about future mobile hardware ahead of the expected Galaxy Z 8 series launch at next week’s Galaxy Unpacked event.

Among the prototypes:

• Flex S folds into a Z shape and opens to a tablet-sized display.
• Out Foldable flips the usual book-style design, putting screens on the outside of both panels and unfolding into a wider tablet-like form.
• Flex Slidable expands horizontally for a larger viewing area.
• Flex Hybrid combines a fold-out design with a rollable section for more screen space without adding another rigid panel.

The concepts revisit ideas that have surfaced before across the industry. CNET notes similarities between the Out Foldable and the 2019 Huawei Mate X, while the Flex Slidable echoes rollable designs once teased by LG at CES 2021 and by Motorola in 2023. Whether Samsung brings any of these ideas to market remains unclear.

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Samsung also showed a prototype display with 5,000 nits of peak brightness, compared with 2,600 nits on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, according to the report. Another concept used 0.6mm bezels, thin enough that a phone-sized display placed over a tablet panel appeared almost seamless from a distance.

As CNET frames it, these are still concepts, not product announcements. But they offer a rare look at what Samsung thinks comes after today’s foldables.