While Windows Phone-powered Nokia handset reveal was meant to be the highlight of Nokia World 2011, one unlikely demo unit at the Future Technology booth stole a fair bit of attention-- the "Nokia Kinetic Device" one can simply describe as... the bendy mobile device.
Soon afterwards, at the Samsung Q3 2011 earnings call, company investor relations VP Robert Yi says the company has plans to have mobile devices carrying flexible screens ready for launch by 2012.
Will 2012 be the year of the bendy device?
The Nokia Kinetic Device not only flexible across both vertical and horizontal planes-- the user navigates through a simple UI by bending and twisting. It has a soft plastic body, an attractive bendy AMOLED display, no actual phone functionality (the demo unit allows access a number of simple functions, such as photo scrolling and music control), and is surprisingly pleasant to play with.
From the Samsung side, one will recall the company demonstrated flexible and transparent screen prototypes last January at CES 2011, and it will surely do the same next year. After all, Samsung owns Liquivista-- the maker of electrowetting technology allowing the development of... that's right, flexible and transparent displays.
Flexible displays are not that new-- at least when it comes to interesting-looking prototypes. Sony showed a flexible display at CES 2009, while a year earlier Plastic Logic had a bendable e-reader.
Customers might find "flexible" devices quite attractive, at least from a "dropping a device may no longer mean disaster" point of view. Now one only has to wonder on the quality of the displays Samsung will offer (particularly in comparison to AMOLED technology) and whether Nokia has a surprise announcement in the works...