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Samsung Demonstrates New 'Unbreakable' OLED Display Panel

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Samsung's display unit earlier this week announced a new "unbreakable" OLED panel designed for smartphones, and a new video Samsung Display shared on YouTube demonstrates the durability of the display.

In the video, the unbreakable OLED panel is subjected to a beating with what appears to be a plastic or rubber mallet, and it withstands several blows without damage.


Samsung's flexible all-plastic OLED panel is made from what it says is an unbreakable substrate adhered to an overlay window, a deviation from other, more breakable flexible OLED panels that use a glass-covered window.

The new OLED panel has been certified by Underwriters Laboratories, an official testing company for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.

To earn the certification, the panel withstood 26 drops from 1.2 meters (4 feet) with no damage and held up to extreme temperature testing. Samsung says the display was also subjected to drops from six feet with no signs of damage.

According to Samsung, its unbreakable panels are being developed for use in smartphones, but can also be used in other products like display consoles for automobiles, mobile military devices, portable game consoles, and tablet PCs.
"The fortified plastic window is especially suitable for portable electronic devices not only because of its unbreakable characteristics, but also because of its lightweight, transmissivity and hardness, which are all very similar to glass," said Hojung Kim, general manager of the Communication Team, Samsung Display Company.
Click to expand...
Samsung's first product to use the new unbreakable panel could be its upcoming Galaxy Note 9, which it is set to unveil on August 9.

While Apple uses OLED displays sourced from Samsung in its iPhone lineup, it is not clear if the Cupertino company plans to adopt this technology in the future.

Apple has thus far opted to use a Gorilla Glass cover for its displays and has not ventured into plastic, but it is not out of the realm of possibility should the display meet Apple's demands for quality.

Article Link: Samsung Demonstrates New 'Unbreakable' OLED Display Panel
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/27/samsung-demos-breakable-oled-panel/
Impressive but as others have stated, let’s see scratch as well. This a good step forward though. Samsung, for all of their faults, does push the industry forward, if by no other way than keeping Apple moving. I don’t believe we would’ve ever seen a Plus sized iPhone without the large Galaxy phones gaining popularity.
 
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How often does the display panel break from drops and such? I know that glass screens and stuff will shatter, but how much will this technology help consumers? Unless Apple starts to use plastic, this is kind of not necessary right? Still cool though.
 
Question: what happens if you would put this inside of a case with a gorilla glass front? Would the glass deal with much of the risk of scratches ("as is" in phones now)? And if you dropped it just right such that the glass did get shattered, would repair mostly amount to a new pane of gorilla glass and/or new case?

In short: if glass > plastic for scratch resistance, but plastic > glass for shatter resistance (ala "unbreakable") as it has been, manufacturers have gone with glass. Drop the device, shatter the glass: big, BIG bill to replace it. Could this work it the other way? Conceptually, a pane of glass NOT adhered to any electronics should be relatively cheap to replace- even gorilla glass XL super duper mach 4. So if the shattered glass doesn't scratch the plastic that IS a part of the underlying device, does this have potential to deliver best of both worlds AND (potentially) much cheaper repairs?

This question is not about love or hate for Samsung or Apple- just trying to think about this separate from biasing for or against any manufacturer. Conceptually, this has the potential to mostly solve 1 of 2 big (repair) problems with mobile devices. Manufacturer agnostically, I'm thinking about the other issue here... and wondering if the above might work (better than "as is")? If not, why not?
 
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Screen Shot 2018-07-27 at 2.46.22 PM.png


Yeahthanksforthat.
 
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Yeah, but plastic scratches like crazy. Shattered glass or scratched plastic...they both equally suck for a phone.
 
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