When Samsung introduced the Galaxy Note-series back in 2011, the smartphone stood for something different, something unique – a large-screen smartphone with support for a stylus. This helped the phone in securing a place for itself in the market and even created a whole new product segment – phablets. Despite Dell Streak being the first truly large-screen smartphone, it was the Samsung Galaxy Note, which was the real harbinger of the large-screen smartphone era. Samsung continued innovating with the Note-series and added features like multi-window over the years, which were included in core-Android code much later.

Now, Note-series finally seemed to have reached a point, where it is becoming harder to differentiate between Galaxy S-series phones and Note-series, apart from the S-Pen. So, Samsung needs a great new feature, which will help Note secure its place again.

It seems Samsung has found that new feature – foldable display. Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s mobile business, has revealed that the Korean manufacturer is planning to release a Note-series smartphone with a bendable OLED screen in 2018. The company isn’t 100% certain that it will be able to do, but at this point 2018 is the target. He was speaking at the Note 8 launch in South Korea.

“As the head of the business, I can say our current goal is next year. When we can overcome some problems for sure, we will launch the product,” noted Koh.

Samsung has been working on foldable-screen smartphones since 2013, when it first showcased a prototype called Youm. Each year, there are rumours that Samsung will release the flexible screen phone this year, but the consumers have been out of luck so far. Will the trend continue in 2018 or we will finally see a bendable display phone from Samsung, only time will tell.

Via Associated Press