Forward-looking: Since the original Milky way Fold'south disastrous launch, folding phones accept vastly improved. The Samsung Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 are proving and then popular that the Korean business firm has plans for a new device in the same category: a double-hinged handset with iii separate displays.

LetsGoDigital spotted a recently awarded Samsung patent that describes a double-folding phone. The device closes in a Z shape, much like the dual-hinged prototype that TCL showed off in 2022, meaning one of the three main displays doubles equally an outer screen with the phone is closed.

That outer display has an in-screen fingerprint sensor, while the rear features a triple-camera setup. Information technology too comes with a USB connector and even an HDMI port. The patent shows how just the front and rear parts incorporate important internal components, such as the batteries.

This isn't the get-go time nosotros've heard near Samsung planning to add a third screen to a foldable. Tipster Yogesh claimed in April that such a device with improved Ultra-thin glass was in the works. In that location was also some other patent with a different design, and Samsung showed off an early prototype in August.

While folding devices are substantially both phones and tablets in 1, those with three screens appear even more slate-similar when fully opened. At that place are certainly some questions over their practicality—look them to exist pretty chunky when closed—and durability.

But it seems that consumers accept an ambition for phones that transform into tablet-like devices, and then we could be looking at the future of the mobile industry. Information technology'll exist interesting to come across how rollable phones fit into all this; we recently saw a patent that'south both a folding and a rollable device.