Let the good times roll! Samsung unveils incredible rollable display concept for laptops and tablet PCs

The animated, unfurling organic LED (OLED) screen might remind some of the wizard world’s Daily Prophet newspaper from Harry Potter. 

Samsung Display revealed their Rollable Flex concept this week, a monitor that rolls up and unspools like a scroll, or a tiny yoga mat. 

The device rolls up to about 2 inches (49 mm) and rolls out to a maximum vertical length of 10 inches (254.4 mm) — five times its storage height. 

Past foldable or slidable screens have at their best only been able to offer up a three-times scalability as their form factor. 

With Rollable Flex, Samsung hopes they can help consumers by making larger devices like laptops, tablets and display screens smaller and more easy to carry.

Samsung Display revealed Rollable Flex alongside their other OLED screen innovations at the firm’s exhibition booth (pictured) during SID Display Week 2023 this week in Los Angeles

The company says that the device’s secret is a carefully engineered O-shaped axis, around which its display wraps like the world’s most expensive sheet of toilet paper. 

‘We were able to turn a difficult-to-carry large-sized display into a portable form factor,’ Samsung Display said, ‘by making it rollable.’ 

But Rollable Flex is not the first scroll-like screen on the market. Other firms have ventured into this space before, including South Korean flat-screen TV maker LG, which wowed CES for years with a gigantic 65-in rollable TV concept piece. 

After two years of teasing at trade shows, LG’s 8K definition, rollable Signature OLED R television finally went to market in South Korea, at the eye-popping retail price of $87,000. 

Samsung showed off Rollable Flex for the first time this week, alongside a host of other wiggling, bendable new tech during SID Display Week 2023, an industry showcase in Los Angeles.

Samsung Display also unveiled a new foldable phone prototype, Flex In & Out, which can fold both inward and outward 360 degrees, and the Flex Hybrid, which merges both foldable and slidable technologies.

There’s no word on when Samsung might make their Rollable Flex display available to consumers, but promise that they will let the good times roll soon enough.