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Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers
- hliyan 8y agoMost cases seem to be due to users mistakenly removing the permanent screen protection layer. The company claims that the foldable screen has been tested for 200,000 folds -- i.e. about 5 years of rigorous use.
- bdz 8y agoCNBC reported that they never removed it but the screen still broke https://twitter.com/robotodd/status/1118585937712250880?s=21 https://twitter.com/robotodd/status/1118585937712250880?s=21
- mirimir 8y agoIf it's so easily removed, how is it "permanent"? Also, you'd think that there'd be a "DO NOT REMOVE THIS" warning on the packaging.
- continuational 8y agoIf it’s pernanent, why would it be removable?
- LeonM 8y agoIt's not removable, that's the point. If you try to remove it, you'll break the screen. See Marques Brownlee's pictures: https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1118580472576118787 https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1118580472576118787
- BillinghamJ 8y agoRight, but it _is_ removable. Easily. Removing it does cause damage sure, but then shouldn't it be very difficult to remove?
- rockyj 8y agoIf the protection layer is all that is "protecting" the screen, why make it removable. Or why not put a big warning label on it (or in the manual) when you unbox the phone. Just saying :)
- nvssj 8y agoThere was a big warning label on the screen, but reviewers didn't read it. Or, as I am starting to suspect, read it but wanted to break the screen to get retweets. https://twitter.com/iloveqatar/status/1118621965596745728 https://twitter.com/iloveqatar/status/1118621965596745728
- stordoff 8y agoFrom the replies: > You can rewatch my unboxing and @UnboxTherapy’s unboxing. Definitely not in our boxes - or any other review units for that matter. Nobody has verified where Des found this
- adrianhel 8y agoNo, place its edges underneath the cover so that it never seems removable.
- onion2k 8y agoMost cases seem to be due to users mistakenly removing the permanent screen protection layer. Let's not push blame on to the user. If the screen protection is so vital that the screen will fail within a day without it, then the problem is that the screen protection is removable and to easy to remove.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hanniabu 8y agoMy phone won't work after I took the battery out. I can't image how they are allowed to produce such garbage. /s
- adrianhel 8y agoDoes you phone make it seem like your battery is an insignificant part of the product? Are you likely to play with the battery repeatedly until it comes off? Not comparable.
- euler_ 8y agoThe screen protector is an integral part of the screen. It's not that if fails later on without it, trying to remove it destroys the screen. It's like pulling the contacts out of a port and complaining that the phone won't charge.
- freehunter 8y agoThe point still stands. If the screen protector is so vital, it shouldn't be removable, shouldn't look removable, shouldn't be an option to try to remove it, and instructions should be clear to not attempt to remove it.
- magic_beans 8y agoThe screen protector should not be removable then.
- serpix 8y agoI wonder if they bothered to test it with some sand on it and in freezing conditions / variable conditions.
- chrischen 8y agoThis may be a case of cultural differences... a lot of Asian people like to leave those plastic protectors on!
- matt4077 8y agoI remember several US households with plastic cover over their couches. They didn’t even remove them for special occasions. It always struck me as extremely strange to effectively ruin a product only to be able to throw it away in somewhat better condition.
- magic_beans 8y agoMy grandmother did this, which always struck me as insane. Because it IS insane.
- tobyhinloopen 8y ago"Most cases" = "One case"
- Abishek_Muthian 8y ago>The device the BBC handled, incidentally, was taken away by Samsung shortly after filming was finished, so our team hasn’t had a chance to see these issues for ourselves. This seems a red flag, when devices involving mechanical innovation the reviewers should insist on long term review & shouldn't term anything less as a review.
- LeonM 8y agoThere can be many reasons they took the devices with them after filming. The explanation can be as simple as Samsung UK not having enough samples for all the journalists in London.
- tooltalk 8y agoor I speculate Samsung didn't want to expose their folding implementation to competitors, who would rush to release "me-too" copies, just before Samsung's release.
- rchaud 8y agoSamsung did the same thing at MWC after the unveiling. Most of the demo vids I saw on YT had Samsung employees handling the device. Huawei on the other hand gave the Mate X to YT'ers for them to shoot 5-10 minute videos examining the phone and fold mechanism from every conceivable angle.
- consp 8y agoWhile not directly comparable, the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime and those moved as much as this thing is going to. This might just be a cause of early production models and early adopter problems and might work out later. Note: the flex cables are not bad per se as they are also used in cubesats for instance.
- baybal2 8y ago> the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime Early flip phones used high spec slip rings instead of flex cables. It's a shame that the industry making those high spec micro slip rings went away with flip phone era. Only when phones reached the point of being a disposable commodity, they switched to less reliable direct cabling.
- Reason077 8y agoThere is currently a widely reported issue with display backlight failures in MacBook Pros, apparently caused by a failure-prone flex cable which can’t be replaced: https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/ https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoFlex cable used for the mainboard-to-screen connection in Nintendo's DS was a major failure point. It was very tricky to replace (for me); but that did make for many cheap devices that just needed a small repair.
- baybal2 8y agoI wonder, if a phone with folding screen truly was a Jobs Steve's "joke?" May be it wasn't, but what a bad design decision it is. What I hear here in China are engineers saying that "all it took a fashionable American CEO to make up a joke about phone with folding screen for Huawei and Samsung to spend billions actually making it."
- headShrinker 8y agoOver the years Apple was famous for pantenting some pretty crazy ideas. I’m on the record saying I would never want a folding screen for many reasons, fragility being one. As for Jobs playing a joke? I’ll just leave this here https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2002/06/china-paper-bites-on-onion-gag/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2002/06/china-pap... China may not share our understanding of satire and sarcasm, but you’d think Korea would understand the basic tenants of engineering and design.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agos/tenants/tenets/
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rosegarden0 8y agoThe true hidden cost of innovation is stress testing. It’s clear that Samsung (and Huawei for that matter) are trying to establish themselves as innovative leaders. Creating the next industry changing device, like Apple did with the iPhone. The ‘secret’ however, lies in stress testing your products to the extreme. Which is why Apple manages, most of the time, to introduce pretty durable products. The recent cancellation of their charging pad due to not being able to meet their own high standards is an excellent example.
- reallymental 8y agoLet's assume that they knew this was a half baked product. Not a "first edition" product like the first iPhone, but a rushed, half baked product, released without consideration of sales but just for being the first in the market for this niche. Given this assumption, why would you give it to reviewers at all ? Remember "Vertu" ? They were the Ferrari of phones during the Blackberry era and were _shit_. I got my hands on them as a kid and was astonished how bad they were compared to my dad's cheap simple Blackberry. There's a reason why they were not reviewed widely, or positively by a large margin. Why not just do the same thing? Don't be daft and give it to the hands of reviewers who have twitter on their fingertips and will tell everyone about every single flaw about your device, when you know your device has flaws. Give it to the CEOs/Sports personalities, and let them flash it around for a few days/events, and cover up the flaws in the second edition. If it breaks on their hands, they certainly won't care to advertise that fact, they'll just get another phone. If they actually thought they had finished this product, well... SSNLF is going to notice a strong presence of gravity for the next few days.
- NLips 8y agoVertus were always intended as ostentatious, bling products, rather than fantastic phones. They were mid-range models covered in gold and diamonds etc. A Ferrari is meant to be ostentatious _and_ a great car (not withstanding pratcicality or cost).
- okket 8y ago-
- lm28469 8y agoIt won't transport your luggages but it'll transport your soul. /s
- saiya-jin 8y agoA great car can be a car that simply puts a smile on your face due to sheer engagement and fun of driving it. It stirs your passions. And Ferrari here delivers. Practicality, costs etc. doesn't enter the equation at all.
- Traubenfuchs 8y agoThis is the direct result of rushing to offer something that can be called innovation after years of a draught. But foldable phones are as much a gimmick as 3D cameras. Phone innovation is indeed dead -for the customer, that's ok, but for the vendors it's a nightmare.
- tooltalk 8y agoThis is obviously an early adopter edition of fairly interesting, futuristic product -- Samsung is likewise releasing it in limited quantity by reservation only. It's only gimmicky as phablets that many had denounced years ago.
- burgerzzz 8y agoI don't see how this not a flip phone with a screen on both ends?
- dragonwriter 8y agoA flip phone with a screen on both ends doesn't open up to one continuous touchscreen.
- ceejayoz 8y agoNeither does Samsung's, apparently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- majewsky 8y ago> It's only gimmicky as phablets that many had denounced years ago. I still want a compact flagship phone.
- dagw 8y agoSony and Samsung tried a few years ago. It seems no one bought them.
- Someone 8y agoMy guess: that “film that went over the screen” is there because Samsung discovered that, in one’s pocket, pressure on the outside of the device decreases the radius of the device below its bend radius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bend_radius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bend_radius). The units reviewers have may be early versions with that extra film. That would explain why Mark Gurman wrote ”It appeared removable in the left corner“.
- AFascistWorld 8y agoI think it's simple science, no multi-layer material can withstand that stress, but the current technological optimism made too many people believe nothing human can't do. Like this one trader dude I tried to reason with, he was basically "I've got money."
- redwall_hp 8y agoSee also: Internet responses to the AirPower cancellation. It mostly sums up to "how dare a big company with a lot of money not be able to defy physical laws." People seem to think they'll magically solve wireless charging over distance as well...
- adrian_pop 8y agoThat's the cost of being the first and trying to be a pioneer. At least they don't explode...
- no1youknowz 8y agoI'm really excited to see where foldable phones go. I know it's the first version, but looking at unbox therapy and their review. I kept on seeing the fold. [0] If you look at reviews of the Huawei Mate X like this one [1]. Sure it's a preview version and a bit shiny, but looks much better than what Samsung has released. IMHO Huawei has built a better foldable phone. Seems samsung has rushed this out to be the first vendor to release this type of phone, a shame really. [0]: https://i.imgur.com/Fl7PSBx.png https://i.imgur.com/Fl7PSBx.png [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqcpZj_NUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqcpZj_NUg
- solarkraft 8y agoSamsung might have the more impressive technology (well, we thought that before this), but Huawei seems to have thought about the concept a bit more (even though the technology is easier). It just makes so much more sense to fold to the outside.
- DanTheManPR 8y agoThe Mate X concept seems much cleaner, with a larger true tablet mode and no redundant screens. It remains to be seen whether the screens can survive normal without getting scuffed up or scratched. I had the same skepticism when the iPhone first came out, but glass screens have proven to be more durable than I thought they could be. Maybe these folding screens will surprise me too?
- Someone 8y ago”It just makes so much more sense to fold to the outside.” It may make less sense if the bended part of the screen isn’t as strong as conventional flat screens. There’s a bit of a catch-22 there: you either fold the screen to the inside to give it some more protection, or you fold it to the outside to have a screen on the outside and increase the bending radius. I don’t know enough of the technology to say what’s the better choice, but it seems it isn’t a trivial decision to make. If it were, the two companies would have made the same choice.
- 8y ago
- Wyndtroy2012 8y agoAt least it's not exploding like the note 7 did.
- saiya-jin 8y agoTBH is anybody surprised? Bendable plastics/cables that should work after maybe 50,000 folds (few years of usage) are hard, and first iteration of actual display? Without losing at least some pixels, backlight, contrast etc in the area of the fold, or display actually cracking? Highly expected. Now if they actually managed to get all things right in the first iteration, now that would be a huge engineering achievement. They will get there, but give them 2-3 generations
- oliwarner 8y agoThere are a few ways of looking at this. Most of the more engineery-types are pointing out the inevitability of failure, the challenges trying to find a good enough substrate to mount a touchscreen stack on, and trying to protect an exposed external hinge from impact, and all that material engineering science stuff that's really clever... But well besides the point. I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a folding screen. This seems like a gimmick searching for a market, not an answer to demand. And if this was the lowest hanging fruit for R&D to develop the next generation of phones, I think we're finally facing real stagnation in the phone market. Screen pixel density exceeds eyesight. Battery density limits are as far as known science can push them. Storage is beyond what we can reasonably use. 4G is fast enough. They've made every size of phone between a stamp and a tablet. There's nothing left to do. Phones are as dead as the PC. What's next?
- hprotagonist 8y agoanti-phone peripherals. Now that phones are the ubiquitous computers everyone has, we need a next tier down for persisting contact with less addiction! watches, wireless earbuds.
- kalado 8y agoI would like a folding screen for the same reason as everybody else. You can put it in your jeans pocket. Want to watch a move on the train? Pull out your fold and you have a pretty decent size tv. Same for everything else. Only if it doesn't break of course.
- linsomniac 8y agoNoteworthy: 2 of the 3 reviewers I read about broke the screens by taking off the "screen protector" the phone shipped with. It wasn't a screen protector, it was part of the screen.
- leovander 8y agoReminds me of several people that peeled off the covering on the Pocket Chip, thinking it was a sort of protector. You can see the bubbling in this picture which could lead someone to believe they should remove it. https://daverupert.com/images/posts/2017/IMG_1194.JPG https://daverupert.com/images/posts/2017/IMG_1194.JPG
- neogodless 8y agoI cannot ascertain from your comment if you have an opinion on this, but my opinion is that this is a major design flaw (even if it didn't result in immediately broken screens).
- linsomniac 8y agoOh, I don't have an opinion on it, thanks for clarifying that. I could probably formulate one, and I'm not sure it would be different from yours.
- twblalock 8y agoIf it is part of the screen it should not look like a removable screen protector. Everyone is used to pulling a plastic layer off their phone's screen when they take it out of the packaging. This thing looks exactly like one of those.
- linsomniac 8y agoI once had a friend that was complaining about their decade old microwave and how the keypad was really looking bad, like it was going to fail at any moment. I took a slightly closer look at it, scratched it with my fingernail, and peeled off the protective cover, leaving a brand-spanking-new looking keypad. We definitely have people trained that electronics come with a protective film over them. I mean, we clearly don't have everyone trained, but... :-)
- jccalhoun 8y agothey're folding it wrong. :P
- iheartpotatoes 8y agoI have an iPhone 7 and the Phone app periodically freezes requiring a reboot. Let that sink in: the primary function of the phone does not work. And I switched to Apple after too many Android issues turned me off completely. You think we're going to nail folding screens any time soon?
- jandrese 8y agoSounds like you might have bad hardware or a corrupt install. Phone app freezes should be exceedingly rare, to the point of nonexistence for most users. I assume you have not jailbroken your phone?
- duhi88 8y agoYea, I have a 7+ with no issues. Also a 6 that still works fine after the latest updates.
- iainmerrick 8y agoI frequently hit bugs in the Phone app in iOS too (eg can’t answer incoming call). When I used Android it was even worse. I just assumed that was a common experience but nobody cares.
- agumonkey 8y agoGotta carry the grievance. What you hold in your head is not a phone, it's a pocket computer platform. Phone is mostly a vestigial tail at that point. I'm on the Android side and their phone app is deliciously garbage, nothing is right, nothing. And nobody cares. I miss my motorola v50 every time I have to make a call.
- Bud 8y agoFolding screens are at least 5 years out. Samsung clearly wasn't even close. As for your iPhone 7 Phone app, that's clearly an anomaly local to your device. Not normal. Reinstall your software.
- rhinoceraptor 8y agoI don’t get why all the phone makers are set on making bendable folding phones. We have the tech to make OLEDs with near zero bezels, so it seems like the most practical way to do this would just be to use two separate display elements, and make the gap between them as small as possible.
- zamadatix 8y agoThis was the approach of the ZTE Axon M. I think it was a good way to do it as well.
- iainmerrick 8y agoThe main thing I don’t understand about all this is, what would be wrong with just having two screens with a thin hinge between them? Movies wouldn’t look as good, sure. But what else? Surely this entire product line can’t be driven by movie watching... can it?