Every year, I look forward to tech expos like MWC because it’s the one place where I’ll get to peek under the hood of my favorite companies to see what they’ve been cooking in their R&D departments. You know that every year, you’ll see some crazy stuff from Lenovo, Motorola, TCL, Tecno, LG, and even Samsung. I’ll be honest, Samsung’s a market leader in quite a few departments – it has a solid footing in mobiles, smartwatches, tablets, TVs, and appliances… and I expected them to embrace weirdness and creativity within those niches, but it looks like Samsung’s gunning for the gaming industry too. Meet the Flex Gaming Console, a wild concept that brings foldable tech to handheld consoles.
Tucked away at the Samsung Display booth (the Display-based R&D division of Samsung), the Flex Gaming Console is a pretty wacky-looking handheld. It sports a Nintendo Switch-style design with a central screen and multi-colored control areas on the left and right – but unlike the Switch, the thing folds in half like a book. Why? Portability seems to be the first thing that comes to mind. The second most obvious answer is because it’s cool as heck!
Designer: Samsung Display
First off – no, this isn’t a future product. Samsung knows better than to enter the gaming space unprepared (just look at how quickly Google Stadia collapsed). The Flex Gaming console is a proof-of-concept to highlight the capabilities of Samsung’s flexible display technology. In short, it’s Samsung’s way of giving OEMs ideas for foldable gaming devices. If Nintendo or Valve bites the bait, great! Otherwise, this is Samsung telling other players like ASUS ROG, Lenovo Legion, and Razer to disrupt the space.
Kept away from attendees behind a ‘Do Not Touch’ sign, we still managed to get a close look at the Flex Gaming console thanks to a helpful Samsung employee. The device is surprisingly compact, measuring thinner than any flagship handheld console when opened. Even when folded shut, it’s a little under an inch thick. Open it, and you’re greeted with a 7.2″ screen that folds along the middle. There’s obviously a crease, but it’s distributed thanks to a wide double hinge. The most impressive bit, however, is the design of the controls on either side of the screen. With an almost yin-yang-like design, the controls are designed to fit into each other when shut. The protruding joystick’s thumb disc fits perfectly into the hollow space left behind by the torus-shaped action buttons.
You’ve got a bunch of other controls like dual trigger buttons on the top left and right. An obvious Home and Play/Pause button on the front, volume controls on the top, an aux input, and even an SD card slot. It’s surprising how detailed the console is, even though Samsung shows no plans of marketing or launching such a device. If anything, they’re teasing Nintendo, which announced the Switch 2 in January, boasting just mild iterative upgrades to its design. If someone were to launch a foldable controller running SteamOS or even Xbox Game Pass, I think it would absolutely take the gaming world by storm.
Is a folding game console practical? Well, I’d tend to agree, given that compact tech is always perceived as better than bulky tech. The Flex Gaming console borrows from Samsung’s work in its foldable phone department, cleverly distributing batteries and PCBs in ways that allow folding without compromise in performance. The console is sublimely thin, which means sure, it’s not as powerful as a Steam Deck, but current Steam Decks can’t fit into your pocket. This one can.
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