Forget Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 — this could be Samsung’s foldable tablet

Forget Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 — this could be Samsung'due south foldable tablet

(Image credit: LetsGoDigital)

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 that's coming later this twelvemonth could look positively sometime-fashioned when compared to a unlike foldable tablet that Samsung may be working on.

Samsung has even so to put its foldable display technology onto a tablet, though such a move seems inevitable. And a newly revealed patent shows that Samsung is thinking nigh how to interpret the design of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Samsung Milky way Z Flip to larger devices. From our vantage point, it certainly looks good.

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The patent for the plainly named "Display device" was spotted by LetsGoDigital, which also produced the renders and illustrations you see here to better evidence off what Samsung has in the works. There's no mention of internal engineering science, so we'll focus mostly on this tablet's looks.

The tablet'due south opened blueprint features a simple rectangular display, except with two subtle notches on either side of the screen where the folding machinery is. These contain the tablet's charging port, ability button and dual speakers on the outside edge, while inside the bezel on one side is the tablet's front-facing camera and microphone. This is fairly similar to how the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 wait — aside from the crease for the hinge of course.

The tablet's trunk around the notches is besides noticeably thicker than the extremities of the tablet. Similar to how the Huawei Mate X2 foldable phone tapers from ane border to the other, the illustrations in the patent bear witness a device with one thicker side and one slimmer side. This could make the tablet easier to handle 1-handed, but does go against the general symmetrical design of nigh all modern devices.

Unlike Samsung'due south Z Fold or Z Flip phones, there's no external display or photographic camera module present on this tablet blueprint. It'south arguably not necessary on a tablet to accept such immediate admission to your notifications, or for information technology to have rear cameras. However information technology does feel odd to see a foldable without these features.

The hinge in LGD's renders has been fabricated to await like the foursquare-ish one on the Galaxy Z phones. This would be smart since the hinge on these devices works well in a number of ways. Besides every bit permitting the folding action, the hinge tin also hold the device open at multiple angles, and contains miniature brush elements within to go along dirt out of the sensitive inner mechanisms.

Overall this seems like a rather tame concept for a folding tablet. However Samsung is perhaps smart to go along things simple. Tablets are not by and large a user's master device for photography or responding to immediate messages, then keeping a clean design that focuses on maximizing internal space should suit most users well, and continue the no-dubiety extortionate toll down every bit low as it tin can become.

A simple book-style foldable isn't the only concept Samsung is working on. The company has also filed patents for three-office foldable phones, equally well as rollable and slidable designs. These also sound incredibly exciting, merely this kind of foldable is much more probable to appear before these more novel designs do, if they even become real products. After all, patents don't always translate into shipping products.

Samsung's tablets are already some of the best tablets around, even with stiff competition from Apple tree's iPad family. However, if the electronics giant could bring out this tablet concept as a retail product, it would effectively corner the folding tablet marketplace, similar it has with the folding telephone marketplace. That is, until other big foldable products like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold start popping up.

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Richard is a Tom's Guide staff author based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and whatever else people need advice on. Following on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he'south also written for WIRED U.Yard., The Annals and Creative Bloq. When not at piece of work, he'due south likely thinking almost how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.