I finally care about the iPhone Fold thanks to this new tech

• A big win for foldables the world over
• What does this mean for the iPhone Fold?

At the currently ongoing CES 2026 trade show event taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, Samsung Display is showcasing a rather enticing new technological breakthrough: a genuinely creaseless foldable OLED panel. Available to view at a dedicated ‘Crease Test’ demo booth, this new crease-free screen is perched side-by-side with the existing display that’s currently used in the company’s flagship Galaxy Z Fold 7 book-style folding phone.

While I’m not there in person to assess Samsung’s new creaseless sample display as it pertains to real-world performance, early comparison photos coming out of the event certainly look promising. While the company has previously mitigated the intensity of its foldable phone creases in prior hardware generations, including most recently with the Z Fold 7, the distinct line going down the middle of the phone’s inner display is still on the noticeable side. This all-new creaseless sample screen, by comparison, appears convincingly crease-free.

Based on previous reports, including one by industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo over on X, it’s likely that Samsung is using ultra-precision laser processing and a drilled metal display plate to achieve the crease-free end result found on this new panel being showcased at CES. According to Kuo, the South Korean Fine M-Tec is the supplier of the metal plate component itself.

For the time being, Samsung hasn’t confirmed if and when its new creaseless display tech will make its way into consumers’ hands, and there’s no word on exact component pricing or yield rates. As a whole, it’s unclear whether this new display technology is ready to be supplied at a mass-production scale, or if this is something still being worked on behind the scenes. If there’s one thing that’s likely, it’s that Samsung’s own next-generation Galaxy Z Fold 8 will arrive with a variant of this creaseless screen tech in tow as early as this fall.

A big win for foldables the world over

Display creases on folding phones might soon be a thing of the past

Foldable phones have matured greatly over these past few years, and we’ve seen significant refinements be made to the form factor, build quality, durability, and hinge engineering prowess across competing book-style and flip-style folding handsets on the market. Putting aside concerns over pricing and the durability of inner-screen displays, modern foldables like the Z Fold 7 and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold are well-refined on the whole. That being said, the display crease running down the middle of these devices remains a perpetual nuisance, even if they’re less egregious today than they were in, say, 2019.

On newer models from the likes of Samsung, Oppo, and others, foldable display creases are still very noticeable during inner-display use when out in broad daylight, though they tend to blend into the background when the screen is lit up in less brightly-lit environments. Contemporary creases are also still noticeable to the touch, with a distinctly recognizable divot feeling whenever a user runs their finger across the display.

While I’m unsure whether Samsung’s new creaseless screen tech will solve the divot issue, and while it almost surely won’t solve the issue of soft, scratch-prone inner foldable screens, it does look like it might well eliminate the visual disruption dilemma in its entirety. Assuming these new panels aren’t too much of a price hike over existing market solutions, I can envision just about every foldable Android phone maker jumping on the crease-free bandwagon sooner rather than later.

What does this mean for the iPhone Fold?

Apple’s first foldable smartphone is rumored to be creaseless, and I’m ecstatic

For the longest time, Apple has been rumored to be very close to entering the book-style folding phone market. If recent rumors and leaks are to be believed, we might finally be getting the so-called iPhone Fold as early as September of this year. What’s more, there are a growing number of rumors that point to Apple’s first foldable being a truly creaseless one.

Apple has a knack for sitting on the sidelines and waiting for a technology to mature, only to swoop in and conquer the market through a mix of creative innovation, intelligent software and hardware integrations, and refined end-user experiences. I reckon the existence of display creases across the Android foldable scene has been a dealbreaker for the Cupertino, California-based tech giant until now, and that a new era of creaseless foldables is likely to be ushered in right alongside the world’s first greenlit foldable iPhone model.

If it’s true that Apple’s foldable will launch with a wholehearted embrace of Samsung’s latest-and-greatest crease-free display tech, then I, for one, can’t wait to see what’s in store later this year. While the existence of a display crease isn’t the end of the world in my eyes, it does mar the overall sense of luxuriousness that book-style handsets otherwise convey. With this particular obstacle potentially out of the way, Apple can focus in on what it does best: tailoring human-computer interactions (HCIs) for a new tech form factor to the point where going back to a traditional slab-style iPhone might one day feel absurd.