With companies like Apple and Samsung releasing new flagship devices every year on a consistent schedule, we’ve grown somewhat spoiled. Back in the day, new phone releases engendered a lot of excitement as we saw significant advances in performance, mobile photography, and more. These days, though, it’s become a lot more challenging for smartphone manufacturers to impress consumers. As a prime example, Apple’s iPhone lineup last year didn’t exactly move the needle even though they marked the best bang for the buck we’ve ever seen from new iPhones.
With that said, it’s entirely possible that foldable smartphones represent the wave of the future. I’m a little bit skeptical but I’d love to be proven wrong. The exciting part in all of this is that we’ll likely find out sooner rather than later given that Samsung’s Galaxy Fold and Huawei’s Mate X are both slated to launch later this year.
As with any new industrial design, there is naturally a lot of skepticism surrounding the durability of foldable smartphones. Just recently, for example, word surfaced that the hinges on foldable smartphones are particularly challenging to manufacture at scale given that they need to be incredibly resilient and thin at the same time.
To help alleviate our collective concerns, Samsung earlier today released video footage of a “Folding Test” it uses to ensure that the Galaxy Fold can withstand normal day-to-day use.
“This test, which examines whether the Galaxy Fold can outlast 200,000 folds and unfolds (or around five years of use, if used 100 times a day), takes a full week to complete,” Samsung notes. “While the extent of the test may seem like overkill to some, Samsung viewed it as vital to ensuring the durability of device’s hinged design and Infinity Flex Display.”
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