Samsung set to be first to market with curved screen smartphone

 Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will introduce a smartphone with a curved display in October, as the world's top handset maker seeks to set the pace of hardware innovation and maintain its supremacy in a fiercely competitive business. Samsung to launch curved screen smartphone and gold Galaxy S4

Curved displays are an early stage in screen evolution which is shifting to bendable or foldable designs, eventually allowing mobile and wearable gadgets to take on new forms that could radically change the high-end smartphone market.

In January Samsung, which has taken over from Apple Inc as the global smartphone leader, showed off prototype products with a flexible screen and a display that extends from the side of a device.
But technology firms have yet to figure out how to mass produce the parts cheaply and come up with display panels that can be as thin as a sheet and highly heat resistant.
Curved display is already commercially available in large-screen televisions. Samsung and its home rival LG Electronics Inc had started selling curved OLED TV sets this year priced at about $9,000.

The Korean giant has been talking about curved and even bendy screens for a while now but one is finally set to arrive in October, according to Reuters. It showed off a prototype called Yuom at this year's CES show back in January.

"We plan to introduce a smartphone with a curved display in South Korea in October," Samsung's mobile business head of strategic marketing D.J. Lee said on Wednesday at an event launching the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone in Seoul. 

Other reports suggest that this curved screen wielding smartphone will be a limited edition of the Galaxy Note 3. We're already seeing curved televisions launch but Samsung could be the first to bring it to a smartphone.

The technology will likely marketed at "unbreakable and light" but it's unlikely that users will be able to bend the phone itself. We'll have to wait and see whether this device launches in Korea only or spreads further. Samsung could launch it at home to test the water before going global.

Not to be outdone, Samsung has also announced that it will launch gold versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. The news comes after Apple introduced a gold model of the iPhone 5S. Samsung Gulf posted a picture of the Gold Brown and Gold Pink Galaxy S4 models on Facebook.

It's also unclear whether these will be launched in the UK or even the US but we'll let you know if we hear any more details.