Without thinking about its fate in the United States, at least, not yet, Xiaomi continues to come up with more advanced technologies. This time, we’re learning about a new concept smartphone that has a Quad Curved Waterfall Display. We know of phones with curved screens but they are only on two sides. Xiaomi’s idea is that all four sides are curved. As described, everything “flows over the edges smoothly and seamlessly”. This Chinese OEM continues to deliver innovation for everyone although the phone is just a concept.
This release will probably remind you of the Mi Mix Alpha. More than the high-specced cameras, we were more concerned about the display but the phone didn’t really make it into production. It was put to rest but we soon saw the Xiaomi Mi Mix Alpha II patent and image renders.
Pictured below is the Xiaomi Quad-curved Waterfall Display Concept Smartphone. It’s only a concept so this may or may not go into production. Xiaomi describes the phone with a “revolutionary hyper quad-curved 88-degree surface”. It takes advantage of breakthroughs in laminating and glass bending. This one boasts a port-free unibody design as a result of about 46 patents.
Quad-curved Waterfall Display Concept Phone
This is the first quad-curved waterfall screen concept smartphone. We don’t doubt it can be done but it’s a matter of proper implementation. We believe Xiaomi can do this but the bigger question is: does it have to do it?
The design is futuristic. It’s all-screen with the idea of an 88° hyper quad-curved display which is a revolution in manufacturing and bonding. Xiaomi describes the concept phone display and the process as this:
Compared with ordinary curved glass, the difficulty of hot bending increases exponentially. Polishing a piece of such hyper-curved glass with a deep 88° bend on four sides requires self-developed glass processing equipment, hot bending under 800°C high temperature and pressure, four different polishing tools and up to more than ten complex polishing procedures. More importantly, behind such a piece of glass are thousands of attempts.To attach such a piece of 88° quad-curved glass to a flexible display, an innovative screen stacking design was adopted through our breakthrough 3D bonding process. All of this ensures perfect and flawless screen performance.
This may be the future of smartphones. It is a new direction which is different from flexible displays. A port-free unibody phone is possible with a flexible film display acoustic technology, wireless charging, ultra-thin piezoelectric ceramics, under-display cameras, pressure-sensitive touch sensors, and eSIM chips among others. We’ll see in the near future what Xiaomi’s real plans are with the concept.