Samsung wants gadgets of the aboriginal to bash much than conscionable fold successful half. That connection was wide astatine CES, wherever the smartphone shaper showcased its flexible show concepts. Among the astir notable was the Flex Hybrid, which has a surface that folds and slides to alteration its size. 

The Flex Hybrid folds closed similar a notebook, but opens up to uncover a tablet-sized show with an adjustable screen. The show tin power betwixt 10.5- and 12.4-inch surface sizes, acknowledgment to its slidable and foldable design. In summation to changing the screen's size, the prototype tin besides leap betwixt 4:3 and 16:10 facet ratios. Although the Flex Hybrid is conscionable a concept, it shows that Samsung is investigating what the adjacent improvement of foldable phones and tablets mightiness look like. 

The Flex Hybrid is conscionable 1 of respective mock-ups, which Samsung elaborate successful a Jan. 3 press release. There's besides a 17-inch slidable display, which was previewed successful September, and a integer cockpit conception meant for self-driving vehicles. My workfellow Eli Blumenthal, who had the accidental to see Samsung's concepts successful person astatine CES, said these designs person renewed his excitement astir the aboriginal of foldables.

Read more: CES 2023: How to Watch the Biggest Announcements from Samsung, LG, Nvidia

Samsung showcased its show concepts astatine CES 2023.

David Katzmaier/CNET

Concepts similar these don't ever effect successful existent products, but the Flex Hybrid feels astir successful enactment with Samsung's existent merchandise strategy. Foldable phones lone relationship for a sliver of the broader telephone market, but the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip person go well-established wrong Samsung's mobile instrumentality lineup. The company's aboriginal introduction into the foldable telephone abstraction has fixed it an borderline successful presumption of marketplace stock arsenic Samsung accounts for much than 88% of the foldable smartphone market, according to Omdia.

TM Roh, the caput of Samsung's mobile acquisition business, suggested in an interrogation past August that the institution is already reasoning astir what's adjacent aft the Z Fold and Z Flip. The instauration of caller concepts similar the Flex Hybrid underscores that point.

"It's everything you saw [at CES] positive more," helium said, referencing the show concepts Samsung showcased astatine CES past year. 

But Samsung volition besides apt look much contention arsenic foldable phones proceed to evolve. Motorola and TCL person some shown rollable telephone concepts of their own. Oppo's Find N2, which the institution introduced successful precocious 2022, besides shows a batch of committedness acknowledgment to its lightweight design, as my workfellow Sareena Dayaram wrote. 

Although Samsung is trying to marque foldables a much regular fixture successful our regular lives, its extremity isn't to regenerate regular phones.

"I would not spot either conscionable a bar-type, oregon conscionable a foldable, oregon conscionable different perchance caller signifier origin dominating the market," Roh besides said during the erstwhile interview. "But alternatively I spot the antithetic categories coexisting together."