Samsung Patents a New Foldable Smartphone Concept with Z-Shape Design

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is only about a month away from release. This time, the Seoul-based company will hope things go smoothly - easily broken screens scuppered their initial release.

It seems like they are confident it will, as the company has just filed a patent for a new foldable phone design that looks set to further their foldable smartphone plans post-Galaxy Fold.

RELATED: THIS FOLDABLE SMARTWATCH DESIGN GIVES APPLE AND SAMSUNG A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY

New design patent

In a recent update, Samsung said the Galaxy Fold will go on sale in September and promised that design issues with their original review units have been fixed.

Whether that turns out to be the case or not, the company seems to be planning for the future of foldable devices.

As BGR reports, the Korean Intellectual Property Office approved Samsung’s patent for a smartphone with a Z-fold design back in May - when the original Galaxy Fold was originally supposed to launch.

The design, which, unsurprisingly, allows the phone to fold into a Z shape, was presented in a patent that's available to see on LetsGoDigital, the company that created the renders.

If the patent design matches the final product, the barely visible screen edges will be an impressive sight, making it look like users are carrying a foldable screen around - that happens to double up as a smartphone and tablet.

Give us more folds

While developers will no doubt come up with novel ways to use the Z shape, its main functionality is likely to allow the user to unfold the device into an even larger, tablet-like screen than the current Galaxy Fold model.

It also looks like the screen may be foldable in both directions, meaning that, if so desired, a user could have the exterior of the folded device be all-screen - this can be seen in the above image on the top right and below on the left.

So it seems Samsung might have even more riding on the Galaxy Fold than previously thought. They're not the only ones going for the Z shape design though - Oppo recently filed a patent for a Z-shape foldable smartwatch concept. 

Of course, going from patent to the shop floor is a long road - let's see how Samsung's and Huawei's upcoming releases go before getting too excited.