Some Early Galaxy Fold Units Already Breaking For Reviewers

Samsung released the ambitious Galaxy Fold at its Unpacked event in San Fransisco on February 20. It is the first foldable smartphone from the company and offers an innovative design. While the company announced the handset will be available for customers starting April 26, early review units were provided to a few journalists in the US. Fresh reports have surfaced that a few of the review units have already started breaking for some reviewers.

The Issue

The first reports of the Samsung Galaxy Fold breaking for some reviewers started arriving on Wednesday. A noted journalist from media house Bloomberg tweeted a photo of his smartphone with the inside display not functioning completely. After that, many more reviewers stepped forward and reported they were facing a similar issue wherein the display on the inside stopped functioning. At the time, it was unclear if it was a hardware issue or physical damage was inflicted on the handset. A few people even reported facing issues of dents or physical damage to the screen just by opening and closing the folding mechanism.

The Cause

While it didn’t apply for everyone, the major cause for the display malfunction was later reported to be the removal of the outer screen protector that was applied to the inside display. Samsung mentioned in the instructions the protective film shouldn’t be removed under any circumstances as it may lead to the smartphone malfunctioning. However, some cases wherein the layer have not been removed the device still faced issues in the inside display. This was later attributed to malfunctioning of the hinge that facilitated the folding mechanism.

Samsung’s Statement

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Samsung, the company behind the Galaxy Fold, later released a statement addressing the problem and tried to suppress the panic. It read that the company will thoroughly inspect the malfunctioning units in person in a hope to determine the cause of the matter. The statement also advised not removing the additional protective layer or add any adhesives to the main display as it may cause damage to the smartphone. Samsung has claimed it will issue this information clearly to the customers of the Galaxy Fold so that no more confusion is caused. Because of this issue, the company was expected to push back the release date of the smartphone. However, the company has clarified it will be moving forward with the launch on the aforementioned date.