Samsung Galaxy S11 deploys mystery new screen technology to beat Huawei P40 Pro

(Image credit: Phone Arena)

published 13 November 2019

The leaks, rumours and speculation surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S11 are reaching fever pitch. Even for the flagship handsets of the past, it's rare to see the sheer amount of internet buzz the S11 has generated, and it's a testament to how excited people are about Samsung's latest. The most recent leak reveals a mysterious tidbit of info based on a recently-granted trademark.

Spotted by Dutch news outlet LetsGoDigital, Samsung has filed a trademark for the name "SAMOLED" via the Korean Intellectual Property Office. In a brief description, the application reveals SAMOLED as "an OLED display; smartphone display; monitor; television screen; digital signage; computer screen".

That's not a lot to go on. One easy theory is that the name refers to a Super AMOLED display that's already very popular in smart devices today. A Super AMOLED display is an AMOLED screen (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) which has incorporated a touch-sensitive layer into its structure. Previously, touch-sensitive layers sat on top of the screen rather than incorporating it into the glass, creating a thicker surface.

It could be Samsung's unique name for a slightly adjusted or differently branded Super AMOLED screen, but it seems unlikely Samsung would attempt to trademark such a widely-distributed piece of hardware.

Could Samsung be preparing something bigger – for example, a new kind of screen technology? If so, what's missing from the phone screens of its rivals, such as the Huawei P40 Pro? We'll know for sure soon, as that "early 2020" launch date inches ever closer.

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Matt Evans now works for T3.com sister brand TechRadar, covering all things relating to fitness and wellness. He came to T3.com as staff writer before moving on, and was previously on Men's Health, and slightly counterintuitively, a website devoted to the consumption of Scotch whiskey. In his free time, he could often be found with his nose in a book until he discovered the Kindle.