Forget folds, Samsung’s next trick could be a massive phone you roll up

Samsung has already showed off rolling displays in concepts, but a real flagship phone using the tech would be an incredible achievement.

We’re in the middle of an arms race at the top end of the phone market, with Samsung, Google, Huawei, and others all duking it out for the most eye-catching foldable design. But if rumors are to be believed (and yeah, that’s a big “if”), Samsung is working on a rolling screen phone that could bring the stuff of science fiction to your very real pocket.

The rumor is that Samsung is bringing the Rollable Flex OLED concept display it showed off in 2023 to a mass market design. Korean news outlet The Elec says that this phone would start off with a typical “candybar” form factor, but roll out to a massive 12.4-inch display. That’s about the same size as an iPad Pro, in a gadget you can fit in your pocket (assuming you wear men’s pants, anyway).

The phone is said to be earmarked for release in the latter half of 2025, which would put it in the same general rollout as next-gen Galaxy Z phones, presumably the Z7 Fold and Z7 Flip. The only other detail shared is that it uses the under-screen camera the Z series has been showing off for several generations.

Folding phones are still a tiny sliver of the market despite the category being more than five years old now. Blame it on those prices creeping up towards the $2000 USD mark, and users hesitant to plop down that much cash for a device that’s inherently less durable than a conventional smartphone. The leak says that Samsung is particularly disappointed in the sales of the Galaxy Z6 and S24 series. Again, that might, just might have something to do with phones that cost more than a month’s rent.

But even so, Samsung needs to stay in the high-end status symbol market, if only to keep up appearances. In addition to the usual cutthroat competition with the iPhone, the shine is coming off the Z Fold series. Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold is ever-so-slightly thinner and Huawei currently holds the crown for jaw-dropping presentation with the triple-folding Mate XT and its 10.2-inch screen. Samsung needs a new aspirational device, the phone equivalent of a Nissan GT-R, to get people excited about the brand and its down-market devices where the real sales volume and money are.

And Samsung is certainly equipped to make that swing. It’s the largest company in South Korea, frequently competing for the most cutting-edge tech in the market with its Display division, and supplies millions of screens a year even to its competitors. Remember, most of the iPhones you see have a Samsung OLED panel inside them.

But this is still a huge risk. This kind of form factor would have immense engineering challenges on its way to a retail product, most notably getting a usable battery for a tablet-sized screen into a phone-sized frame. Disappointing performance from split batteries are still one of the big weaknesses in Samsung’s sixth generation of folding phones. The 2023 concept display used a motorized frame to show off the rolling action, with no hands-on demonstrations available. Who knows if that would make it into a final design.

So even if this rumor is true, there’s a sizeable chance that Samsung could encounter such difficulty in developing the device that it misses a 2025 release window, or just gets scrapped entirely. But even as someone who waits for a generation or two before buying new tech, I can’t deny that I’m excited. I’ve literally dreamed about a device like this, a phone-sized thingamabob that transforms and rolls out into a laptop-sized display. I hope it’s real, and I hope Samsung can make it a retail reality.