After the Galaxy Fold breaks in the hands of reviewers, Samsung delays launch

Samsung hits "pause" on the Galaxy Fold to figure out the display issues.

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[pkirvan]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

 

[panckage]

It will be ironic if the "stolen copies" of this technology turn out to be more durable than the original

 

[earlyberd]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

 

[Cloudgazer]

Proof that you gotta know when to fold them as well as when to hold them.

 

[blasikov]

And exactly 0 people were surprised that a fold-able screen is impractical.

 

[Urist]

Man, not releasing this on the 26th is a huge missed opportunity; Just re-brand this as the Samsung Galaxy Snap! get some cross promotion going with Avengers: Endgame and market it as Thanos' favorite tablet.

 

[Mk.II]

Gotta claim that "world's first foldable phone" spot, whether it's a piece of crap or not.

 

[Akemi]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Seriously, how difficult is it to simulate two days of normal use? Even a simple machine to just open and close the phone X number of times could be built by hobbyists in their garage for a few hundred bucks at most. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation can handle such a feat.

 

[Voyna i Mor]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Compared to the world phone and laptop market I doubt the military, with its huge bureaucratic inefficiencies, long timescales, changing specifications and enormous backhanders would be of great interest to volume makers.

 

[UserIDAlreadyInUse]

Proof that you gotta know when to fold them as well as when to hold them.

On a warm summer's eve
In an expo set in Vegas
I met up with a Samsung rep
We were both too tired to meet
So we took turns a-starin'
Through the case at the new phone
The ennui overtook us,
And he began to speak.

He said, "Mate, I've made a life
Out of floggin' fringe, new tech
Pitchin' experimental kit
For a usecase that might not exist
So if you don't mind me sayin'
I can see you're out of patience
For a taste of your whiskey
I'll give you some advice"

So I handed him a bottle
And he drank to the last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette
And asked me for a light
And the room got deathly quiet
And his face lost all expression
He said, "If you're gonna buy this phone, boy
You gotta learn to use it right."

"You gotta know how to hold it,
Know how to fold it...."

 

[Voyna i Mor]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Seriously, how difficult is it to simulate two days of normal use? Even a simple machine to just open and close the phone X number of times could be built by hobbyists in their garage for a few hundred bucks at most. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation can handle such a feat.

I think the alarm bell was the "hundred million dollars" of development cost. In the circumstances, it doesn't seem very much.

 

[harmless]

If this was supposed to be delivered on the 26th, the phones obviously are already produced.

What are they doing with these devices if the display has problems? Dump them all? Replacing the screen on a large scale does not seem practical.

 

[biffbobfred]

Samsung is the "let's hit all the checkboxes and if we hit most we win" Android manufacturer.

If your screen breaks, at least you have Bixby to do voice control

 

[SPCagigas]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Compared to the world phone and laptop market I doubt the military, with its huge bureaucratic inefficiencies, long timescales, changing specifications and enormous backhanders would be of great interest to volume makers.

Yep. One of the stupidest things I learned when I was working in military acquisition years ago was that the military didn't move the needle for electronics because the military is thick-headed. Do you know that most of the cost differential between a hardened laptop screen and an upfront display is because military pilots had to have square displays and wouldn't cope with changing formats from square instrumentation to 4:3 instrumentation?

I wish that was a joke, but it's not...

 

[peragrin]

The Huawei folder has 100 parts in the fold. I doubt they stole that from Samsung. Theirs works really well BTW.

Too bad you fools are stuck without Huawei. No 5G etc etc.

Heck i barely get 4G and I am 40 miles outside of Boston.

5G is so far off the time line schedule it isnt even funny.

 

[lewax00]

And exactly 0 people were surprised that a fold-able screen is impractical.

One failed attempt does not invalidate the entire idea.

 

[Alyeska]

Proof that you gotta know when to fold them as well as when to hold them.

Know when to walk away, know when to run.

 

[harmless]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Seriously, how difficult is it to simulate two days of normal use? Even a simple machine to just open and close the phone X number of times could be built by hobbyists in their garage for a few hundred bucks at most. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation can handle such a feat.

There's video of Samsung testing Folds with just such a machine. The failure pattern apparently is not quite so obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McdgS3Popjk

 

[thebonafortuna]

Gotta claim that "world's first foldable phone" spot, whether it's a piece of crap or not.

Perhaps. But it's not really fair to Samsung when, like so many innovations, they invested heavily in the R&D only to have it stolen by China, as described in the article:

Samsung said it has spent six years and over a hundred million dollars to develop the folding display technology in the Galaxy Fold. Late last year the company said this display technology was stolen, though, and sold to competitors in China. With companies like Huawei and Xiaomi also demoing foldable phones now, it would not surprise me to hear that Samsung was trying to rush the Galaxy Fold out the door to keep its title of "first foldable" from a mainstream manufacturer.

It's not right to rush it out the door and harm your customers, but at least the market can respond when all things are equal. But all things are not equal when there's an organized, well understood, concentrated effort to steal your technology with zero repercussions.

 

[SPCagigas]

Proof that you gotta know when to fold them as well as when to hold them.

Know when to walk away, know when to run.

Sounds like they tried to count their money while they were sittin' at the table...

 

[kaisersoser]

Smart move.

Clearly there are design flaws that made it past their UAT process. Better to fix them now, than to turn consumers paying $2000 into beta testers.

BTW, Samsung might want to think about overhauling their UAT process. These kinds of defects should never have made it into the hands of reviewers.

 

[thekaj]

I'll be curious as to whether, after 6 years and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development, they'll be able to solve these issues in a few weeks. My guess is that if they didn't solve them in that time, it's not going to be a quick fix. Although maybe making it so the important layer that looks like a removable screen protector doesn't look so removable is something that can be done without starting from scratch. Or, they'll just slap a sticker on the screen saying "don't remove this part" and call it good.

 

[CraigJ ✅]

What it the market requirement for this functionality in the first place? What are the use cases?

 

[SPCagigas]

I'll be curious as to whether, after 6 years and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development, they'll be able to solve these issues in a few weeks. My guess is that if they didn't solve them in that time, it's not going to be a quick fix. Although maybe making it so the important layer that looks like a removable screen protector doesn't look so removable is something that can be done without starting from scratch. Or, they'll just slap a sticker on the screen saying "don't remove this part" and call it good.

Or they need time for their PR & legal teams to spin this before they have to cough up any deposits made for pre-orders.

 

[Voyna i Mor]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Seriously, how difficult is it to simulate two days of normal use? Even a simple machine to just open and close the phone X number of times could be built by hobbyists in their garage for a few hundred bucks at most. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation can handle such a feat.

Actually, that's the logic that leads to situations like that. Your few hundred dollar folder is not going to simulate real world use. It's the old saw about making something idiot proof just evolves a more capable idiot.

You need to be able to simulate the effects of dust and humidity, of people forgetfully trapping objects in the fold (possibly Huawei thought of this at their design stage), people sticking their thumbs in to open the thing, and all the other things real people do.
In a way reviewers are more like the target market. Reviewers were obviously sceptical. But people who spend $2000 on a phone presumably have disposable income levels at which they don't care and will treat things carelessly.

 

[SPCagigas]

What it the market requirement for this functionality in the first place? What are the use cases?

I would imagine the use case for a device with a screen nearly the size of an iPad mini when open that's still pocket-able when closed would be a no brainer. Who wants to spend a long time working from a phone screen when they could work from a slightly-larger phone screen?

 

[kaisersoser]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Seriously, how difficult is it to simulate two days of normal use? Even a simple machine to just open and close the phone X number of times could be built by hobbyists in their garage for a few hundred bucks at most. Surely a multi-billion dollar corporation can handle such a feat.

There's video of Samsung testing Folds with just such a machine. The failure pattern apparently is not quite so obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McdgS3Popjk

Just goes to show, no amount of automatons can beat the unpredictable and destructive powers of monkeys!

 

[Russ1642]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

They've had tons of time to test the screens properly. They haven't been given enought time to fix the design issues.

 

[harmless]

I do feel rather sorry for Samsung, as this looks like it could have been avoided if they'd provided the actual consumer packaging and some big warnings to (naturally curious) reviewers about the protective layer.

The protective layer being removed is just one failure pattern.

Other reviewers' phones broke with the protector intact.

 

[ChewbaccaDad]

They need to get Kenny Rogers to do the commercial for this goofy thing

 

[PhilipStorry]

What it the market requirement for this functionality in the first place? What are the use cases?

What was the market for the Galaxy Note when it first shipped (and was roundly mocked as a behemoth unworthy of purchase)?

What was the market for the Altair 8800? Or, in the UK, the Spectrum ZX 80?

Sometimes, the only way to figure these things out is to ship it and see what happens. It'll either find a market, or end up as a Nokia NGage.

 

[Voyna i Mor]

So does Samsung do any internal testing or is it all outsourced to reviewers and customers? Seems like it wouldn’t be hard to simulate two days of use by a regular person.

I don't think they felt they had the time to test it thoroughly before release. It seems like it was rushed, probably because FlexPai already released a foldable phone before Samsung did.

And there's a lot at stake; the first company to prove successful with foldable, durable displays can expect a lot of lucrative military contracts in their future. I can understand why companies might be a little too eager.

Compared to the world phone and laptop market I doubt the military, with its huge bureaucratic inefficiencies, long timescales, changing specifications and enormous backhanders would be of great interest to volume makers.

Yep. One of the stupidest things I learned when I was working in military acquisition years ago was that the military didn't move the needle for electronics because the military is thick-headed. Do you know that most of the cost differential between a hardened laptop screen and an upfront display is because military pilots had to have square displays and wouldn't cope with changing formats from square instrumentation to 4:3 instrumentation?

I wish that was a joke, but it's not...

You may remember that the Moon landing computer internally converted ACU to SI and then back again. The astronauts said they had no need of it, they were familiar with SI. One explanation put forward was that US people following the landing would get "confused" if they heard people using metres and kilograms.
So...was it the pilots or Phineas T Backhander in the specifications department?

 

[houkoholic]

What it the market requirement for this functionality in the first place? What are the use cases?

The use case is exactly a smartphone that fold out to doubles as a real size mini tablet - if you watch the reviews of the Fold, nearly everyone said the use case and idea is compelling if only the device is not so fragile.

I’ve even seen some reviewers say when folded the small screen is actually surprisingly good because it goes back the fit a single hand usage mode, and if you really need the big real real estate you unfold it and get many times more screen, which makes it a compelling choice over an oversized smartphone which cannot mode change.

 

[thelee]

I do feel rather sorry for Samsung, as this looks like it could have been avoided if they'd provided the actual consumer packaging and some big warnings to (naturally curious) reviewers about the protective layer.

At the moment it feels more like a PR screwup than a major design flaw. The only incident that worries me is the one with a vertical line in the middle at the fold - that might mean that this technology is better suited to a tablet rather than the more punishing demands we make of a phone.

I have a suspicion that investigation of most, if not all, units will show that the layer was peeled off or tampered with.

(Disclaimer: I don't buy Samsung phones at all, because their annoying reversal of the position of the back button means I won't buy their devices. I'm on my fourth Sony phone, and have a Lenovo tablet. I've got no dog in this fight!)

of the several reviewers with broken phones, only a portion of them actually messed with their protective layer. CNBC's and the verge's, i think, both just started failing for random reasons. CNBC: "However, CNBC didn’t remove that layer, and our screen is now also failing to work properly. When opened, the left side of the flexible display, which makes up a large 7.3-inch screen, flickers consistently." The Verge, as an alternate example, had a random bulge near the fold that eventually broke the display.

edit - CNBC quote source is https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/17/samsung ... ering.html

 

[ChewbaccaDad]

What it the market requirement for this functionality in the first place? What are the use cases?

People who know when to hold em will have no use for this.

It is a device for people who know when to fold em.

 

[kaisersoser]

I do feel rather sorry for Samsung, as this looks like it could have been avoided if they'd provided the actual consumer packaging and some big warnings to (naturally curious) reviewers about the protective layer.

...

If they had to warn anyone about a "protective layer" in the first place, then the design is fundamentally broken.

No electronic device should be ready to take more abuse than a mobile device.