LG Curved Screens Will Be ‘Bendable And Unbreakable,’ And Curve In A Different Direction Than Samsung Screens

LG has announced that they will start producing curved screens on smartphones, following South Korean rival Samsung. The LG curved screens will curve differently than the Samsung curved screens, but won't be available until next year.

Samsung said the release date for their curved screen smartphone is later this month, while LG said it will start selling their version of the curved screen smartphone in 2014, BBC News reports.

LG has called their curved screen phone the "world's first flexible OLED [organic light-emitting diode] panel for smartphones," according to BBC News.

OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, is a high-resolution, high-contrast display. Samsung's curved screen phone will be a special version of its Galaxy Note 3, which reportedly will be called the Galaxy Round, CIO Today reports.

A press release from LG's display division indicated its handset screen would curve from top-to-bottom rather than side-to-side, which is the design Samsung described in a recent patent.

This means that though LG and Samsung will both have curved screen phones, they will bend differently.

LG also said the advantage of using the curved screen technology was that the panel was "bendable and unbreakable," BBC News reports.

LG said the 6-inch display it is now making is concave from top to bottom and measures less than half a millimeter thick. It's made from plastic not glass, making it bendable and unbreakable, the company said.

Companies are hoping these new screens will attract customers because they will be lighter, more drop-proof, and more ergonomic, Vinita Jakhanwal, an analyst at IHS, told the New York Daily News.

"It will eventually evolve into a totally flexible display that enables form factors that are foldable and rollable," Jakhanwal said.

Samsung and LG are both already selling big-screen televisions with curved displays,  the New York Daily News reports.