Advance in Chinese phones

Chinese firm will use 'inferior' OLED in bid to 'attract attention'

Huawei to shame Samsung with launch of 'world's first' foldable phone in early 2019

CHINESE PHONE MAKER Huawei is 

reportedly planning to launch the first 

foldable phone early next year ahead of 

Android rival Samsung. 

While Samsung, which this week 

showed 

off its upcoming "unbreakable" flexible 

OLED display panel, has long held the 

lead in display innovation, Nikkei reports 

that Huawei plans to use bendy OLED 

panels from the Chinese supplier Beijing 

Oriental Electronics (BOE) for a limited 

run of smartphones that could arrive in 

very early 2019."

BOE, which will reportedly manufacture 

displays for Apple's OLED 

iPhones, might 

not be a recognisable name to many, but 

The firm already demonstrated its own 

Samsung-rivalling flexible OLED panels 

(below). 

And even though BOE's tech is said to be 

inferior to Samsung's OLED, Huawei - 

now the world's third largest phone 

maker - apparently ain't fussed, and 

simply wants to be first to market to 

attract "attention and media coverage". 

"Huawei's planned volume could be 

limited to some 20,000 to 30,000 units, 

or even less, for a small group of first-

wave adopters," one person familiar with 

Huawei's said to Nikkei. "The effort is 

mainly to demonstrate its technology 

capability and to attract the industry's 

attention and media coverage."

Huawei's ambitious plan might not 

come 

off, though, as the report notes that "the 

launch date will depend on technology 

development and the durability of such 

panels, which still needs improvement."

Beyond Huawei's ambitions to beat 

Samsung to market, there are no 

additional details about the foldable 

phone. 

We know quite a bit about Samsung's 

foldable device, though. The so-called 

Galaxy X, which new reports claim could 

arrive as the Galaxy F (for, er, foldy?) will 

likely feature a 7.3in OLED screen when 

open, and 4.5in when folded in. 

The "super high-end" phone will 

also feature a curved battery under the 

hood and is rumoured to cost about 

$1900 upon release. 

 (£1,440).

Samsung, which has been showing off 

foldable smartphone prototypes behind 

closed doors for the past five years, is 

reportedly  "rushing to develop"the 

Galaxy X device 

so that it's ready for

unveiling at next year's Mobile World 

Congress, which will take place a month 

after the Galaxy S10's rumoured CES 

launch.