The Galaxy Fold was recently put through a stress test by CNET to determine how many folds it could take before breaking, and the number was far under the manufacture’s estimated 200,000 folds.
The publication started a livestream on October 3rd, where a machine continually folded and unfolded the futuristic smartphone many times per second.
While this might not be as delicate as real-world usage, it does show that the Fold is still more susceptible to breaking compared to a regular slab-shaped phone.
In the test, the Fold lasted 120,169 folds until the screen blacked out on one side.
Generally, people open their phones about 80 to 200 times per day, according to The Verge. That means that you should still be able to get a few years out of the Fold if you stay within the average use case.
While this isn’t great news for Samsung’s expensive phone, it also begs the question: is Microsoft’s dual-screen strategy the more appropriate way to build a foldable device. While we have yet to see how Huawei’s Mate X handles the real world, it’s likely very delicate as well.
This is also sad to see since Samsung held back the release of the phone to ensure the retail version didn’t break as easily as the original review units.
Luckily for Canadians, we don’t have to worry about this since Samsung isn’t releasing the Galaxy Fold here. So collectively, we’ll need to cross our fingers and hope Samsung can work some magic to produce a much stronger phone for its next foldable.
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