Samsung's Second Foldable Smartphone, $1,380 Galaxy Z Flip, is Dead on Arrival, Too (inputmag.com) 49
Evan Rodgers, reporting for Input: When Samsung released the Galaxy Z Flip, its newest folding phone, at midnight this past Friday, I was one of many who wasn't able to snag one due to low stock here in New York City. So here I am, refreshing my order page while I watch the lucky few who did manage to get one put them through their paces online. Though most YouTubers and reviewers seem to be enjoying the phone, durability is a question, and at $1,380 here in the U.S., it's a good one. At Unpacked, where Samsung announced the Z Flip, the company made a big deal about the "Ultra Thin Glass" that covers the display. One could be forgiven, then, for assuming that the display has all the scratch-resistant properties of glass, but in a durability test by JerryRigEverything on YouTube, that doesn't seem to be the case. In the video you can see Zack's (the YouTuber) tools and even fingernails leaving permanent scratches on the display.
That's OK (Score:3)
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I don't see a real need for a folding phone, but if it were foldable then I could accept that it were actually two separate screens that were meeting very close at the hinge instead when opened.
Overall it's an expensive solution looking for a problem.
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Was just going to post the same thing. I have a non-folding phone with gorilla glass that slips easily into my pocket, with a silicone protector that prevents it from getting scratched. If I got this folding phone I'd have a thick lump sitting in the bottom half of my pocket that, at best, might be useful for pickup lines in a bar, but little else. With my standard phone I can see what's happening on screen just by pulling it out of my pocket, and don't need to unfold it first. This isn't useful, it's j
Re: That's OK (Score:2)
A) You can scratch it with a fingernail and b) its like 1400 bucks with tax depending on country.
140 bucks okay whatever. But if you have any grain of sand or anything like that on your finger its going to scratch all to hell in a year.
Its just a concept flagship. People aren't supposed to actually buy it... Phone companies have been doing that for ages
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I am currently using a Galaxy S8 Active, which has a glass screen but comes with a stick-on plastic protector pre-applied. It scratches more easily but is replaceable. I wonder if there is some reason these flexible screens can't use a replaceable surface too.
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I would agree with this, if one of the "tools" that permanently scratched it wasn't a fingernail.
My fingernail can not scratch most plastics. I do not expect my fingernail to leave permanent scratches on my screen if I am trying to get rid of a piece of sticky dirt.
Have you used a phone with a plastic screen? (Score:2)
I can't say I've used a $1000+ phone with a plastic screen before, but the budget phones with plastic screens don't feel all that nice when it comes to swiping. They also don't really get clean, as the surface becomes uneven (dents, pits) with use.
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Might I suggest a plastic screen protector? I prefer glass protectors myself but if you're partial to the feel of plastic then you do you. Nevertheless, either should solve your cracked phones issues.
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The slab design that imposes the requirement for a screen to ride against your keys all day in your pocket without getting scuffed is the problem.
Respectfully disagree. Putting a glass box in the same pocket with jagged metal screen-breakers is the real problem. I can't understand why people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on something as fragile as a smartphone and then put it in the same pocket with keys, change, and assorted detritus, and then complain that their screens are scuffed, scraped, or broken.
You wouldn't carry around a laptop in a bag full of keys (okay, maybe you would, but I wouldn't), so why would you carry around a phone that
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My thoughts stop there.
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Clearly we've all been using phones with glass screens for long enough that we've forgotten how bad plastic screens are.
Back in the day of the low-res LCD screen, when a scratch or scuffed area would be smaller than a pixel or character, people could work around them. But now a dime-sized scuffed area (which wasn't uncommon back in the day) would render a phone screen unusable since it would obscure important info. Same with scratches, where one of reasonable size would have real effects on screen usability
Wow, what a surprise! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: Wow, what a surprise! (Score:1)
We need to wait for Apple to do it right. I suppose. They will figure out what works and steal it as usual.
Phony (Score:2, Interesting)
Bendable screens are still a solution in search of a problem. Slightly curved TVs, "edge" screens, and foldable phones. If anything I'd want a current-sized phone that unfolds into a double-screen, not a square that unfolds into a current phone.
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If anything I'd want a current-sized phone that unfolds into a double-screen, not a square that unfolds into a current phone.
But isn't that exactly what, you know, the Galaxy Fold they released a few months ago [futurecdn.net] is ??
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The problem is that the screens aren't flexible enough yet, meaning you end up with a very complex hinge that has to avoid bending it too much. The Galaxy Fold doesn't close flat to increase the curve radius, and the Motorola slides the bottom of the screen up a little to achieve that while still closing fully. But in both cases dirt getting under the screen via the hinge is the main weakness, coupled with a much less scratch resistant screen surface because it can't be super hard pre-tensioned glass.
I thin
Re: Phony (Score:1)
Shipping is a one time cost compared to mobile devices.
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The problem they're solving is that phone screen sizes is limited by the device footprint. If you fold it, you can have a display twice as large, or the device half the XY size for the same footprint, at the cost of thickness.
Obviously there are some engineering and manufacturing challenges but it's very clear what the benefits can be. Imagine if all laptops had the keyboard and display on the same plane, like a giant Blackberry, and then someone came up with a crazy idea of putting the screen on a hinge.
Fo
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Bendable screens are still a solution in search of a problem.
Problem: Want device that has a big screen but fits in a small space while not wanting the screen sectioned. There found it for you. Kind of obvious when you think about it. I'm surprised you didn't come up with it yourself, what since we've been fantasizing about solving this problem you've been searching for since 70s SciFi stories.
Don't have a use case for it? More power to you. You do you man, in the mean time it seems it's popular enough that people who wanted one couldn't get one.
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The glass is covered in plastic (Score:4, Informative)
Samsung's response to all of this has been "the glass is covered in a plastic protection layer and that's what is scratching"
If that is the case... then what's the point of all the ultra thin glass hoopla? Making a big deal about glass when its not even exposed to the consumer is ridiculous.
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If the outermost surface that the user interacts with is plastic, that's a plastic screen. That's the substance whose properties are going to be exposed. If you accept their logic that having a glass layer means they can claim it's a glass screen, then I could claim that my phone has a metal screen because it has a metal layer as part of the screen. Yeah, it's behind the screen, but in this case, the glass is behind the plastic.
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In fairness it does look better than just plastic. The Galaxy Fold looks really cheap because of the plastic screen, almost like a toy. Having the glass there seems to have improved the look of it considerably. They will have to wait for the glass products to develop before going full glass only though.
And then consumers will have to wait for bendable glass screen protectors.
Re: The glass is covered in plastic (Score:2)
Why does the screen then die like a plastic one? Rows of pixels die easy
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It does to me.
I've had a scratch on one mobile phone out of the ten or so I've owned, and that scratch appeared after I stopped using the thing.
I don't want scratches. (I don't want a shattered screen either, but this is something that appears to only happen to other people. They must use their phone in a different way.)
You're using it wrong (Score:2)
Oh c'mon, this is 2020, by now you should know that you're supposed to slip your razor-thin phone into a protective cover at least an inch thick to keep it from scratching!
Is that as important though (Score:2)
I would argue, that part of the point of getting a flip phone is that you close it to protect the screen. Does it really need to be as durable as the smart phones we know today?
Ask Samsung (Score:2)
It's important enough for Samsung to advertise it as having a glass screen...
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People have fingernails on their fingers and a touchscreen is meant to be touched with your fingers.
The screen should at the very least be durable enough to not be damaged by using it in the intended manner. This one, apparently, is not.
That's piss poor quality for any touchscreen. It's inexcusable for a phone that costs over a thousand dollars. If that's the best we can do for a screen that folds, then really we do NOT have the technology to make a folding screen.
The people who would buy this (now that the
Not the same risk (Score:2)
It's one thing to brush a fingernail against a surface as you touch with fingertips, quite another to purposefully try to mark screen up with a fingernail. Come on.
Even women with long nails would not be applying nearly as much direct pressure as the screen tester people are.
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I'll bet the scratches will happen given a little time. The fingernail scratch wasn't applied with all that much force and it resisted none of the other scratches either. Some people wear rings with stones on their fingers
In contrast, the screen on my phone is fingarnail proof. My nails would fold back or break before the glass would scratch. And it cost less than half of the Samsung.
But do watch the video, even softer testing styli clearly marked the surface.
"Glass" (Score:2)
If it bends, it has to be soft.
If it's soft, it's not "glass".
Marketing dept lies. News at 11.
Diamond bends (Score:3)
If it bends, it has to be soft.
That's simply not true [phys.org]. Kevlar is another example although it is somewhat less transparent. You can make hard, bendable materials the trick is to make them thin.
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When you have to pull up "nano scale" instances to argue for a flexible screen, you've lost the argument.
microsoft's folding phone is better (Score:2)
DoA Too Like the Million Selling Galaxy Fold? (Score:2)
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An artist managed to sell 30 gram cans of his own poop for $37 in 1961.
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Just stop (Score:2)
About a year ago my trusty old Nexus 5X developed the infamous bootloop of death [xda-developers.com] problem. I decided to get a Pixel 3 after much deliberation - it was wayyyy more than I'd ever spent on a phone (and way more than I wanted to spend). At the time it was on sale so it was as cheap as it had ever been.
It was fine. It worked, it had a decent camera, was pretty fast, but otherwise just Android.
About 6 months ago I had a short term overseas contract come up & decided to pick up a second phone to use locally. I