Samsung had one job and two attempts but the Galaxy Fold still isn’t right.

Back in April 2019 we all know what happened. The structural integrity of the Galaxy Fold failed when some review units were sent to influencers and bloggers for review and they began using the device in real life scenarios. There were reports of blank screens, dead pixel lines, that “not” screen protector thing that was actually peel-able. The units were quickly recalled and Samsung vowed to go back to the drawing board and fix the problems and return with a new release date and a more robust device experience.

They only had one job second time around: don’t let devices break under “normal use.” Of course we can’t count Jerryrig Everything’s durability test, but that as an example, there were bands of pixels dead after a brief accidental encounter with a sharp object. But what will it be like for 99.9% of users who aren’t going to scratch, bend and cut their new $2000 device on purpose?

Well, it would seem that a new wave of devices are hitting desks and pockets around the USA with reviewers showing off their newest iteration of the Samsung Galaxy Fold with new fold dust and lint guards, a screen protector that’s hidden under the bezel and a tonne of warnings on the internal paper work that comes with the unboxing experience. Actually, that’s pretty much it, 3 points of vulnerability supposedly fixed.

Supposedly.

It was reported today by Brian Heater of TechCrunch who, 27 hours after unboxing the Fold, simply opened the cursed device while in line at CVS, found a blob like cluster of multi-coloured pixels about a centimetre across. He goes on to theorise as to how this could have happened, which we encourage you to read in his article

Isn’t this what Samsung promised they had fixed? Are we ready for really expensive folding phones? Why is Huawei so quiet about their Mate X? Do we even need folding phones at all?

It’s glaringly obvious that the hype over folding mobile phones is slowly turning into a headache, if not full on migraine, for manufacturers and PR people in the smartphone space, at least for Samsung. The last thing they need now is another recall or any bad press, no matter how isolated.

The Galaxy Fold comes with a very explicit set of guidelines. They even went to the trouble of making this video guide that dictates how not to break your new Galaxy Fold. At this point we need to start asking ourselves some serious questions about what we actually need from a mobile device. Especially one that costs nearly $2000.

Without this being a hatchet piece aimed at Samsung, I’d like to stress that this seems to be an isolated case and Samsung has taken the device back to examine the failure/damage. I just think it’s a conversation worth having. I’m not an advocate for folding phones, I won’t tell you they are a great idea no matter how much Samsung really wants everyone to say so.

I suppose we’ll see the larger picture as time goes on and more people receive their devices. Will there be more reports of failure after light use? Only time will tell, however my money is on this not being the only failure we hear of in the coming weeks.