LG’s stretchable, compressible screen also shows that in the future, we will have screens that will never break.
The price of technological devices continues to skyrocket. Because of this, it becomes much more painful to accidentally drop your smartphone or tablet and watch the screen shatter into thousands of pieces. But what if screens were the most durable part of a touchscreen device? LG is working on such a future.
The benefits of OLED displays seem endless. They consume less power, make devices thinner and lighter, and outperform LCDs and older display technologies in image quality, with vibrant colors and acceptable contrast levels. Unlike LCD panels, OLED displays can also be designed to be bendable without hindering their performance or causing any permanent damage.
We’ve already seen devices like TV and computer screens that curve to better fill a user’s peripheral vision, and even displays that can be folded and flattened again for users who want to switch between two viewing modes frequently. But LG is working to bring the flexibility of OLEDs to smaller devices, announcing the world’s first 12-inch panel. This panel can flex and stretch like a giant piece of a rubber band. It also can resist abrasion.
The 12-inch panel supports full-color RGB images (LG did not specify exactly how many colors it can produce) and 100PPI resolution. That’s a bit behind the resolution of displays like the panel on the iPad Pro, which reaches 264PPI with a 12.9-inch screen, but if you drop the iPad on a curb, you’ll probably be very upset. That’s different from LG’s display.
LG’s new 12-inch panel can be stretched diagonally to a full 14 inches and then returned to its original size. Its structure uses S-shaped micro-wire structures that act like springs to adapt to stretching. With this innovation, LG believes it is one step closer to expanding the potential use cases for OLED displays.