📜 ⬆️ ⬇️

The first commercial smartphone bracelet with a screen of graphene, the company Moxi Group will deliver this year

It would seem that the cards in the global high-tech market in key segments have already been distributed and the same leading players are fighting for the Royal Flash. But from time to time it happens that even small companies whose employees can be counted on the fingers of both hands manage to bypass the leaders at least for a while. This time, judging by the results already achieved, the closest to the goal - creating a flexible, innovative, full-featured smartphone was not a transnational concern with a multi-billion dollar turnover, but a small Chinese startup Moxi Group from the city of Chongqing in central China.

image

Start-up from China Moxi Group in the person of the executive vice president of the Moxi Group Chongsheng Yuya announced his intention to present by the end of 2016 the first commercial batch of flexible smartphones wrapped around his wrist like a smart watch and bracelet. In the “traveling”, fully bent state, the smartphone with a screen from graphene does not lose any functionality at all, which is still being worked on in the laboratories of the leading technology companies of the planet.

Market
')
As we know, the idea of ​​flexible and foldable screens is not new and is actively developed in the laboratories of the same Samsung, LG and Apple, which patented its own version of the flexible display last year. But in some ways, the development of Chinese specialists has a fundamental difference - the options proposed by competitors, as explained by the Moxi Group engineers, are far from the solutions offered by the company. None of the existing (at least officially presented) prototypes can not be bent without loss of functionality and integrity, like a smartphone from Moxi. And this fundamental advantage was achieved precisely thanks to the graphene component.

Earlier, researchers from the Human Media Lab of Queens University (Canada) demonstrated the first prototype of a thin flexible ReFlex smartphone with a display based on LG's organic light-emitting diode (OLED). The first impression leaves much to be desired - the screen when bubbling unpresentable bubbles, and the supported resolution is 1280 x 720.



Another prototype of the aforementioned Canadian laboratory was the prototype of a smartphone presented at the beginning of May, which is not only capable of deformation, but also allows you to view a three-dimensional image without special glasses.

image

This time the device was called HoloFlex and equipped with a Full HD touchscreen display (1920 Ă— 1080 pixels), made using the Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (FOLED) technology. The panel contains an array of more than 16,000 microlenses obtained by 3D printing. Judge for yourself what you see.



Despite the fact that several “viewers” ​​can view a stereo image at once, a three-dimensional image with a resolution of 160 x 104 pixels, at this stage, is, to put it mildly, in doubt.

In April of this year, a demonstration of Sharp's first flexible LED organic display was held at the Sharp plant in Tenri, Nara Prefecture, Japan. In the implemented prototype, 93% color gamut is achieved in the NTSC scheme, the consumption is 0.4 W, with a weight of 2 grams and a thickness of 0.07 mm. At the same time, the achieved resolution is 540 Ă— 960 pixels (RGB), while the allowable bending radius without damage and loss of functionality is no more than 10 mm.

image

Current market dynamics of flexible and curved displays according to analysts

If in January of this year, quite authoritative analysts from IHS did not dare to give an unequivocal answer about the prospects for the flexible and curved display market, even for 2016. Despite the interest shown by users, the skepticism of specialists was precisely due to the lack of functional displays with high-quality characteristics that could bend the way the user needed. The profile of those devices that are already on the market today cannot be changed at will. Analysts share a certain optimism in connection with the prospects for the development of the direction of flexible displays based on OLED matrices, including displays and TVs with curved screens, the growing demand for which became noticeable last year.

As for the curved display market, in 2015, according to IHS estimates, a total of 55 million devices with curved displays were sold for a total of about $ 2.4 billion and 99% of such devices have curved OLED displays.

In accordance with the forecast timed to the beginning of this year, the growth of the market for devices with flexible displays in the amount of $ 5.26 billion was planned for 2016. That is, the market will almost double, reaching 122 million devices. And in the coming years, sales in this segment will grow to 353 million units of products annually, reaching an average of $ 15.7 billion.

As you understand, when building their predictions, analysts from IHS were not guided by the opinion of the miniature Chinese startup Moxi, but by the sales data provided by the giants of the industry. And the change of the absolute leaders in the production of flexible OLED-displays today is not expected. Moreover, their plans include not only the expansion and restructuring of existing capacities, but also the construction of new factories entirely focused on this area. According to preliminary estimates, the volume of investments planned by each of the leading companies will amount to $ 7-8 billion.

Graphene based display

Graphene as the main material of the touch flexible display of promising Moxi smartphones was not chosen by chance. First, the specialists of the company have been studying the properties and capabilities of this material for quite some time. And secondly, it is graphene that has the unique combination of qualities that are necessary to create thin, fairly sensitive displays of increased flexibility. In addition to its valuable physical properties, graphene is extremely durable, light, has the necessary transparency to create high-quality images.

image

The prototype of the smartphone has already been created. The first batch of 100,000 smartphones will be sold in China this year. If the real demand confirms the expectations of the team, the production will be expanded and flexible smartphones with a graphene-based display will go beyond the limits of the Middle Kingdom.

Despite the increased interest of the curious public, it is necessary to clarify that the first batch will come out monochrome. And this, of course, is the fat minus of development. As Chunsheng Yu specified, the creation of a full-color flexible graphene panel in smartphones of a new generation is already underway, but the first models with color displays can be expected no earlier than 2018. And, in the light of the already emerging competition for the right of the first night in this segment, this date is, of course, not happy.

Price

Like any new product, while there are no competitors in the market, the smartphone will be offered at an “exclusive” price of 5,000 yuan ($ 760). Whether the price will be reduced in the future, and most importantly, whether the supply and investment will be secured by mass demand, even the developers themselves cannot say with certainty. Certain questions arise here in connection with the ease of use, because the smartphone is not a bracelet, and reading the information from a flat screen is still more familiar, more natural and much more convenient.

Despite the originality of the solution, the full functional stuffing and futuristic design, taking into account the monochrome of the display and the uncertainty of the prospects of the gadget, the price for starting looks a bit overpriced. Confidence in this is growing, if we recall that the cost of the initial version of the flagship Apple iPhone 6S in China is 5,288 yuan (US $ 806).

Source + Video


That's all, with you there was a simple service for choosing sophisticated Dronk.Ru equipment. Do not forget to subscribe to our blog , there will be many more interesting ...

image

LetyShops cashback service sponsor . Return money for any purchases on the Internet. Read more about what a cashback service is in our article. We choose a cashback service for the 6th anniversary of Aliexpress.

ps And today we will give someone a cool smartphone, details in our article " Test drive a new smartphone Xiaomi or How to save on a free Xiaomi Mi4S? "

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/394813/


All Articles