Smartphones, increasingly at the center of our digital lives, should not experience any major revolution in 2021, except, perhaps, in terms of design and ergonomics, with the arrival of new devices equipped with flexible screens offering unusual functions.
In 2019, the first folding smartphones with flexible screens were released. In 2020, arrived a prototype of an amazing device, signed by the Chinese Oppo, with a scrolling screen. In 2021, we could see other similar products arrive. This type of device allows you to adjust the size of the screen according to your needs and according to the use. It remains to be seen whether these new smartphones will really appeal to consumers, and at what cost.
In 2021, the deployment of 5G, which began in France in November, will continue. However, the new generation of mobile telecommunications will not really keep its promises, in terms of speeds, for a year or two. We still have to wait for the arrival of the new 26 Ghz frequencies and the adaptation of the operators’ core networks. So there is no need to rush to invest in a 5G smartphone. Remember that the interest of 5G is not only to offer a faster connection speed for existing uses, but above all to allow the development of new uses, such as virtual reality or the connectivity of objects, mainly in the professional world.
As for connected objects, we are talking, for 2021, of new models of connected glasses, more successful than the late Google Glass of 2013. Several brands have projects in their boxes, including Apple. We are talking about new augmented reality glasses, for example for bikers or skiers, and virtual reality glasses, lighter than current general public masks. These would be used in particular in the professional world, for training or remote control of robots, in medicine and in industry, in particular.
Finally, on the televisions side, a novelty should be marketed this year which bears the name of microLED. This display technology makes it possible to offer modular screens, in the form of tiles, such as wall tiles. It is thus possible to reduce or increase the size of the screen at will, all with moderate power consumption. These innovations should be presented, as every year, at the CES show in Las Vegas, except that, this year, due to Covid, the CES will be 100% dematerialized, with conferences and demonstrations exclusively online, from Monday 11 January.
