One of the most important questions surrounding foldable smartphones is how durable they are, especially when it comes to hinges and displays.
To find out just how durable Motorola’s recently released (at least in the U.S.) Razr actually is, CNET tasked a robot with folding the smartphone until it started to experience issues.
The publication used the same machine to test the Razr as it did with Samsung’s Galaxy Fold last October. In that case, the Fold died after 120,000 continuous, quick folds, with the hinge falling apart.
And… we’re done! The Razr put on a good show, but ~27,000 folds later, it stopped closing all the way ?
— Lexy Savvides (@lexysavvides) February 7, 2020
Motorola’s Razr was only able to survive 27,000 folds. While the smartphone’s display was still operational, the hinge no longer worked, causing the phone to be unable to close. This adds up to roughly 73 folds a day to kill the Razr in just a year.
It’s unclear if there was some sort of design flaw in the Razr CNET tested, as well as if another unit would produce similar results. It’s also worth noting that the publication’s folding robot seems to fold the Razr a little more quickly and rougher than a normal person would.
UPDATE! The Razr still folds, after a little more massaging now it’s out of the machine pic.twitter.com/XFagX7Akcr
— Lexy Savvides (@lexysavvides) February 7, 2020
CNET was also able to get the hinge sort of working again after removing the phone from the folding machine and “massaging” it.
While we know Motorola’s foldable Razr is coming to Canada in 2020, the company has yet to reveal a specific release date.
Source: CNET Via: 9to5Google
