Samsung got everyone excited this week by sending reviewers the retail packaging of the Galaxy Fold to storm YouTube with unboxing and hands-on and rightly so, everyone did it. The galaxy Fold was probably the more hyped one of the two compared to the mate x which is the more expensive one and does not have a release date yet. The colors and the overall first experience wowed the viewers who got us all excited about the Fold, despite the still very expensive phone.
However, there has been quite a twist in this honeymoon phase.
According to a few reports, though, the device isn’t holding up very well to regular use.
Over at The Verge, reviewer Dieter Bohn already has a broken interior display, which seems to have either been caused by a piece of debris or possibly a defect in the internal hinge mechanism. The display now has a white line running through it which certainly is a usability problem.Mark Gurman from Bloomberg seems to be having similar issues.Gurman also found a very thin layer of film covering the foldable display — which he removed. On Twitter, he said that it seemed like the film was supposed to be removed, and only later did he find warnings from Samsung that users shouldn’t remove it. Gurman said that consumers also likely won’t know they are not supposed to remove this film.Half of the currently broken review units comes from users who removed the plastic layer covering the display. According to Des Smith, Product Guy and Content Director for T-Mobile, the Galaxy Fold includes a warning on the plastic wrap that covers the device when it’s sealed in the retail packaging.
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It does appear that the review units might not have come with this plastic wrap. According to Andrew Manganelli, a producer on MKBHD’s team, their review unit didn’t come with the warning. Hopefully, the warning is made extremely visible once retail units begin shipping.
Since the Samsung Galaxy Fold is a first-generation product, it’s inevitable that there will be some issues. However, for a nearly $2,000 device to break after only one day of normal usage — this is not sustainable. Samsung will have a serious problem on its hands if the general public faces breaks like these so quickly.
