Samsung awarded a design patent for a vertically flexed smartphone à la LG G Flex, dockable tablets and a number of others
With 2013 on path to run its course, we're getting into that special period of the year when Samsung is working overtime to introduce a number of new devices. In fact, if initial intelligence proves reliable, this year could just mark the biggest expansion of Sammy's portfolio, with some four tablets already being suggested. Luckily for us, Santa, or the US Patent & Trademark Office in this case, has left us techies a fitting present, as it has awarded the South Korean company a dozen of patents.Those range from new flexible smartphone designs, through dockable and somewhat nontraditional tablet designs, down to, get this, an electronics door lock. Unfortunately, since these are design patents, no relevant information about specs can be found within the filings themselves, though that doesn't mean we can't take a peek through Samsung's peephole. Anyway...
We're obviously going to start with the most intriguing one – the vertically flexed smartphone design patent that Samsung got awarded. Unlike its Galaxy Round, the new device will be vertically flexed, instead of horizontally, much alike to the LG G Flex, and that's a good thing – people didn't quite care for the Round, and LG arguably won this round (pun intended). Regardless, there's no denying that the design is interesting, especially as the back that seems to have gone through a round (last one, promise) of ornamentation. Of course, whether these serve a purely decorative purpose, or are on some kind of reinforcing duty remains to be seen.
Next up, we have a total of four different tablet designs, though they do look much alike to each other, but with some notable differences. For starters, it would appear that reports of Samsung's plans of going after the accessories market may pan out, after all, for all four tablets will have feature compatibility with an external keyboard dock (probably with an embedded battery, too), that they can snap to, both in portrait and landscape orientations. Moreover, two of the tablets, appear near identical, save for dimensions, which leads us to believe that they're just different sizes of the same design, an approach not unlike Sammy. The other two, however, have a notably different design -- one with what appears to be a home button placed at the very edge of the tablet, and another with a protruding camera strip and what appears to be a quad speaker configuration. Very interesting, so do make sure to take a look.
Lastly, another trio of smartphone design patents may be offering us a glimpse into the future, as Samsung moves to reinforce its phone line with new entrants. Design is a subjective matter, of course, yet three of those sure look good. From the looks of it, the third and final one appears to be yet another Galaxy S2 refresh, as it's looking pretty similar to the many variants of the dated ex-flagship.
source: UPSTO
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