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[Afro Republican]

Gizmodo | The Future is Here

Dive into cutting-edge tech, reviews and the latest trends with the expert team at Gizmodo. Your ultimate source for all things tech.

www.gizmodo.com.au

There’s more bad news for all you bleeding edge early adopters hoping to have one of the first folding smartphones to show off to friends. The Galaxy Fold has not only missed its original ship date, in a recent letter to those who pre-ordered the device, Samsung now seems to have no idea when the Fold will actually see the light of day.

When a select number of Folds were sent to tech journalists for review, a host of concerning issues came to light, including flickering displays, screen protectors that shouldn’t have been peeled off, and physical damage to the flexible OLED display when small debris managed to find its way into the phone’s hinge.

These were dealbreaker issues for the device, and to Samsung’s credit, it delayed the Fold’s official launch to address them.

FTC regulations require a company to ship a device that it made available for pre-order in the specified time frame, and if it can’t, it must contact the customers to allow them to cancel the pre-order, or request that they give their explicit consent to keep on waiting.

For Samsung, that shipping deadline is now May 31 in the U.S. Anyone who pre-ordered and doesn’t respond by the end of the month (assuming the Fold isn’t released by then) will see their orders automatically canceled.

Samsung did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

Droidlife has shared a copy of one of those pre-order letters that Samsung sent out earlier this week, which includes a giant link button for those who are still optimistic about the Galaxy Fold being salvageable.

What the letter doesn’t include is any kind of estimated ship date, just a promise of future updates on the Fold’s status in a couple of weeks.

So you hear of some issues, ignore, them say ship anyway, then the reviewers mention issues and you realize "oh shit" then delay it, then change the delay date to "we don't know a date yet" and here we are.

So... It's basically the Note 7 all over again except phones aren't blowing up. This will hurt Samsung.

However, this after the Flex Pai issues (another folding phone) basically give foldable phones a 0-2 score. While the Mate X could MAYBE remedy the tech issues, the hype for it has died along with the fold, and it costs $2600.

This is probably it guys.

 

[John Day]

They’re all rushing into this, the Galaxy seemed so rushed.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Lol, Jesus Christ.

Who thought a foldable phone would work? Come on.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

And nothing of value was lost.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The Q&A testing on that phone was zilch.

 

[Afro Republican]

The Q&A testing on that phone was zilch.

It turned on SHIP IT!

 

[EverydayBeast]

However flawed foldable phones are we're a year in now, and in a year they'll be better.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Good things come to whose who wait.

Huawei and Xiaomi still seems on track at least

 

[Shelbutt]

Did people actually pre-order them? or pre-purchase

 

[J-Roderton]

These things are ridiculous anyway.

 

[Afro Republican]

However flawed foldable phones are we're a year in now, and in a year they'll be better.

Yeah maybe they will actually release next year.

 

[Afro Republican]

Good things come to whose who wait.

Huawei and Xiaomi still seems on track at least

I don't know why you are posting gifs of a "press can't touch" Huawei controlled demo, and a concept phone Xiaomi is still debating on releasing.

The former applies to Samsung as well, and look how that turned out.

 

[Pagusas]

Such a gimmick and the wrong track. This isn’t the future of phones. It’s a silly detour that’s a dead end.

 

[llien]

Who thought a foldable phone would work? Come on.

Well, why, I did, in fact, I'd love to own one of those.
But I don't see the need to bend OLED screen to build foldable phone, I'd rather have two flat screens with no bezel on one side.

 

[Stitch]

I don't know why you are posting gifs of a "press can't touch" Huawei controlled demo

uuhh some people already used it

 

[Afro Republican]

uuhh some people already used it

Pay attention.

The press does NOT have the phone. They only used a controlled demo, just like the Samsung. Then once they got the Samsung look what happened.

 

[Afro Republican]

Well, why, I did, in fact, I'd love to own one of those.
But I don't see the need to bend OLED screen to build foldable phone, I'd rather have two flat screens with no bezel on one side.

Which would put a gap in the middle anyway.

 

[Stitch]

yeah but you said that the press wasn't allowed to touch/try the phone which obviously wasn't the case in this video.

 

[juliotendo]

The global smartphone market has nowhere to go but down.

We’ve already reached a point of how novel we can make a phone. There aren’t many extra things to add every year except for just incremental specs. The iPhone basically is the same iPhone when it was launched in 2007 with just better specs.

Phones are like cars now for most countries. Everyone has access to one or per family.

The next innovation will come from creating cheaper phones with good features for mass consumption. It’s already begun with Nokia, Motorola, Xiaomi, etc.

Foldable screen phones are still very much in beta for the next half decade. They’re like the equivalent of flying cars. Very cool to talk about but still very much a concept.

Samsung blew it here. They rushed and they failed. It’s unlikely this phone will ever be released, there are too many flaws that require more extensive testing and evaluation, and the tech just isn’t there yet.

 

[Fbh]

How can a big company like Samsung who have been among the top phone brands for quite some time have such bad internal testing that sending their new phone out to a few reviewers makes it go from "it's out next month!!!" to "we will release it someday.... probably"???

I get that once there's hundreds of thousands (or more) of your devices out there being used by regular consumers there might be unforeseen issues that didn't show up during testing. But not even surviving a few days in the hands of a few select reviewers is pretty pathetic

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

What a mess.

Press the reset button and make phones that fold down into a little square. Foldable tablets are a stupid idea anyway.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Well, why, I did, in fact, I'd love to own one of those.
But I don't see the need to bend OLED screen to build foldable phone, I'd rather have two flat screens with no bezel on one side.

I think the idea of turning a phone into a tablet is a great idea. This execution however, is terrible.

Off of the top of my head I would have two thin phones click into each other to make a bigger screen. Advances in connectivity, screen software and sockets could make this a reality.

P.s. if any company uses this idea then please pay the royalties you would owe. Otherwise I will take you to court for patent infringement

 

[Afro Republican]

I think the idea of turning a phone into a tablet is a great idea. This execution however, is terrible.

Off of the top of my head I would have two thin phones click into each other to make a bigger screen. Advances in connectivity, screen software and sockets could make this a reality.

P.s. if any company uses this idea then please pay the royalties you would owe. Otherwise I will take you to court for patent infringement

Don't think so. You'd have to have mechanism on the sides of the screens or have a device below the screens that would click which would harm durability. It also would make the phne bulky and we are in a time period where those aren't popular anymore. I don't think we have the tech yet.

The other suggestion of just having two screens move next to each other would create a crease.

The folding phone still isn't ready. Since Kyocera and Nec in 2011 we've seen attempts at folding phones and just a couple years ago ZTE released their Axon M phone and it was the same way. Investment of folding phones is way too slow imo for it to be viable for another 3-5 years.

How can a big company like Samsung who have been among the top phone brands for quite some time have such bad internal testing that sending their new phone out to a few reviewers makes it go from "it's out next month!!!" to "we will release it someday.... probably"???

I get that once there's hundreds of thousands (or more) of your devices out there being used by regular consumers there might be unforeseen issues that didn't show up during testing. But not even surviving a few days in the hands of a few select reviewers is pretty pathetic

Same Samsung that released ill-tested exploding phones in 2016 with the Note 7, recalled the first shipment, send new shipments out with battery changes that STILL exploded, then recalled and cancelled the phone.

Samsung has washing machines blow up to iirc.

Yep:


Samsung has been lucky to still maintain its current position despite losing tons of customers previously and losing money. Most other companies would have been wrecked 3 years ago. But now with the fold news, and the pre-order cancellations I'm not really sure where Samsung is going to end up.

 

[Days like these...]

Plenty of people had hands on tests with Huawei's phone and there were no reports of it falling apart.

 

[Mr Nash]

I guess some people might have a use for such a thing, but these phones seem like more of a gimmick to me as manufacturers try to find ways to keep the price of their flagship units up.

 

[Fbh]

I guess some people might have a use for such a thing, but these phones seem like more of a gimmick to me as manufacturers try to find ways to keep the price of their flagship units up.

That's not too different from current high end phones though.

Sure there's people that might actually need the features but for the most part you don't need the best screen or fastest hardware to text, do some basic internet browsing and use social media. You also don't need 3 cameras to take pictures of your food and take crappy selfies.

 

[cryptoadam]

I have a note 8 and am not even thinking about upgrading. Phones now are so powerful they are like PC's where you can have one for many years.

The only foldable that looks actually interesting is the possible RAZR. Taking a big phone and making it smaller is more sense to me than taking a big phone and making it even bigger.

Only thing is that we all knew gen 1 was going to suck, we need to get to gen 3 or 4. But if its dead in its tracks we will never get there. I want roll out phones or phones that can fold multiple times. But we need to have these gen 1 and gen 2's before the tech can move forward. Imagine if Apple decided to not sell the IPHONE 1? We would all be rocking blackberry's with tiny screens and huge keyboards LOL. Or maybe we would still have our flip phones.

 

[ComptonJapan]

Instead of a foldable phone, use that money to develop a display that's as good as OLED but doesn't have burn-in issues. I had to go through 3 Galaxy phones because of screen burn-in, usually the notification bars or google maps running for maybe 10 minute straights.

 

[Afro Republican]

Plenty of people had hands on tests with Huawei's phone and there were no reports of it falling apart.

No one has review copies yet.

 

[demigod]

Best Buy just canceled all pre-orders.