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LG unveiled its flexible OLED panel for smartphones on Monday. The company says that this will follow "enhanced performance and differentiated designs" products next year.

However, don't get your hopes high for a flexible phone. While the flexible displays are exciting, there's no reason to believe that it will mean a flexible device.

First, the guts of a smartphone aren't meant to be twisted or bent or rolled up. The battery, for instance, is an example of what can't be bent at all.

CNET's Jessica Delcourt listed a few reasons why flexible phones were a long ways off earlier this year and also highlighted other challenges of flexible electronics like the extent to which they should be flexible and the inevitably prohibitive price.

Still, LG's breakthrough is important. Built on plastic substrates instead of glass, it makes the flexibility issue a little less of an issue and it is also very very thin - at 0.44 millimeters.

LG also brags that it's the lightest display in the world, weighing in at a mere 7.2 grams for a six-inch display. And since it bends, it won't shatter and break as easily as a glass display, though it might be prone to scratches.

[LG]