ELI5: How mobile screens can be flipped and still work?

Your phone can flip and still work because it is made of special bendable plastic and a clever mechanical hinge, rather than hard, breakable glass.

Think of a traditional phone like a thick picture frame. If you try to fold it in half, the glass snaps immediately. A foldable phone is different:

• The Screen is like Plastic Wrap: Instead of rigid glass, the display uses a super-thin, flexible material called Ultra-Thin Glass layered with bendable plastic. It acts like a plastic placemat or a piece of paper that you can bend back and forth thousands of times without tearing.
• The Lights Bend Too: The colorful picture comes from millions of tiny lights called OLED pixels. These lights are printed directly onto the flexible plastic, just like printing ink onto a sheet of paper. When the paper bends, the ink stays in place and keeps glowing.
• The Hinge is like a Book Spine: In the middle of the phone, there is a tiny, hidden door hinge with little gears. This hinge mechanism supports the screen, making sure it curves gently like a tear-drop rather than folding with a sharp, destructive crease.
• Wires that Move: The electric wires inside are made like flat, flexible ribbons. Just like water keeps flowing through a garden hose even when you curve it, electricity flows through these bendy ribbons to keep the screen powered up while moving.