Samsung announced a bunch of phones back in February and the star of the show was the Galaxy Fold. This was the glimpse of the future of the smartphone that is supposed to be a phone-tablet hybrid.
Samsung packed a lot of features into this device. It folds on the inside as a clamshell device. It has two screens, a 4.6 inch one on the outside and a massive 7.3 inch one on the inside. It has 6 cameras, 12GB of RAM, latest Snapdragon and Exynos processors and a large battery. Samsung quoted a ridiculous $1,980 price tag for the phone but it seemed people were quite unfazed since it is quite cool.
Well, reviewers have finally gotten the device and there is a problem. It has been barely 2 days since reviewers have gotten the phone and they are sharing on Twitter of the phone’s surprisingly rampant display issues.
The main issue with the Galaxy Fold according to these reviewers is about the internal hinge and the huge internal display. They have posted photos of various problems like bulges, display flickering, displays shutting off and so on. Here are some of them
Steve Kovach’s Galaxy Fold’s internal display is half dead and flickers a lot.
https://twitter.com/stevekovach/status/1118571414934753280
A similar case is seen by Mark Gurnman where his Galaxy Fold is unusable like Steve Kovach’s. You can see the trend.
The screen on my Galaxy Fold review unit is completely broken and unusable just two days in. Hard to know if this is widespread or not. pic.twitter.com/G0OHj3DQHw
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) April 17, 2019
Mark removed this protective layer/film which apparently Samsung says you are not supposed to remove it. He thinks this contributed to the problem.
The phone comes with this protective layer/film. Samsung says you are not supposed to remove it. I removed it, not knowing you’re not supposed to (consumers won’t know either). It appeared removable in the left corner, so I took it off. I believe this contributed to the problem. pic.twitter.com/fU646D2zpY
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) April 17, 2019
Now speaking about that film, MKBHD also talked about that protective film. He started removing the film and the display spazzed out and blacked out.
PSA: There's a layer that appears to be a screen protector on the Galaxy Fold's display. It's NOT a screen protector. Do NOT remove it.
I got this far peeling it off before the display spazzed and blacked out. Started over with a replacement. pic.twitter.com/ZhEG2Bqulr
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) April 17, 2019
For Deiter Bohn’s case, his Galaxy Fold got a bulge and now the phone is broken.
SUPER YIKES: something happened to my Galaxy Fold screen and caused a bulge. I don’t know how it happened, and I’m waiting to hear back from Samsung. It’s broken. https://t.co/p1014uB01D pic.twitter.com/3FZJkWtSKr
— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) April 17, 2019
Samsung has acted fast and has replaced the faulty Galaxy Folds for some of the reviewers and this design flaw could be a chance for Samsung to iron some of the issues with the new design.
This is a first gen product and such problems are inevitable but we can’t wait to see how the 3rd generation would look like.
