The best teardown of Galaxy Fold is no more available for consumers who want to make an informed decision before investing their hard-earned $2000 on a device.
Samsung reportedly requested iFixit, the popular repair advocates and DIY repair solutions store, to remove their teardown of Galaxy Fold. However, after failing to get that done directly, apparently, Samsung achieved the goal with the help of the supplier from whom iFixit originally obtained the device. With the uncertainties surrounding Samsung’s Galaxy Fold growing day by day, such a move doesn’t reassure too many hopes.
The desperation towards the teardown of Galaxy Fold clearly indicates that Samsung is not comfortable with people knowing everything about the Galaxy Fold, especially about the components under the hood and design flaws.
It also leads us to a thought that did the teardown of Galaxy Fold reveal something that the South Korean giant did not want consumers to get aware of? Is there is any dirty secret Samsung is hiding when it comes to Galaxy Fold?
Let us look at it in a bit more detail.
Teardown of Galaxy Fold: No More Available
“We were provided our Galaxy Fold unit by a trusted partner. Samsung has requested, through that partner, that iFixit remove its teardown. We are under no obligation to remove our analysis, legal or otherwise. But out of respect for this partner, whom we consider an ally in making devices more repairable, we are choosing to withdraw our story until we can purchase a Galaxy Fold at retail,” iFixit said, after pulling the review of Galaxy Fold down.
It is very odd for companies as big as Samsung to go on to pressurise a reviewer to remove the review, that too indirectly. One of the reasons could be the fact that they came to know who iFixit’s trusted partner is and then pressurised him to get the review of Galaxy Fold with the sword of repercussions hanging over his head.
But that said, iFixit isn’t the only reviewer who has released a damaging review of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold. Many other websites like the Verge have also released scorching reviews of the highly anticipated device.
So what makes the iFixit review that special?
Beyond The OLED protective layer
To know that, we need to look into the issues on which iFixit was delving deep into. While a lot of reviewers, including the one from Verge, talked about a potential bulge in the screen after multiple folding of the device, iFixit found a different issue.
Most of the reviewers focused on the issue surrounding the thin-bezel protective layer that surrounds the device. Some of them were foolish enough to remove it, considering it as a removable screen protector, only to find internal cracks in their screens, eventually. The issue that iFixit found with the OLED protective layer is that it didn’t actually cover the device fully at all times. When the two halves of the device meet, there is a slight gap. The gap is by no way too big, measuring 7mm by dimensions, but it can definitely cause issues. As rightly pointed out by iFixit, it may attract dirt initially and eventually lead to screen damage. The teardown also revealed the gap surrounding the spine of the device, which may not cause screen damage but could cause issues in the future.
Therefore, it is easy to see how detrimental revealing such a flaw may turn out to be for a device which has been receiving a lot of bad PR already. The design flaw allowing debris to ingress behind the display has also led to the damaging and breaking of a lot of devices.
Asking consumers to invest $2000 on a device which is no better than an experimental device having a number of issues already, is just unethical. Apparently, the company has employed hush-hush processes out of desperation to strengthen its dominant position in the premium smartphone segment, where Samsung is constantly being challenged by OnePlus.
The soaring profit of Apple driven by iPhone XS series – despite the below expectation sales – has also attracted the eyeballs of Samsung.
No wonder Samsung had to postpone the release of the Galaxy Fold indefinitely. In the present scenario, releasing such an incomplete device to the public could be nothing short of a disaster that Samsung already been through with Galaxy Note 7.
Here is the Internet Archive’s version of iFixit’s Samsung Galaxy Fold teardown!
