The title gave me pause, and I sat thinking about what it possibly mean.
How can a galactic entity "fail"? Does this affect us? Surely not since such things would be on the timespans of millions to billions of years. What is a "Galaxy Fold"?
After a few seconds considering such questions, I realized what it was actually about.
I expected it to be a case of dark matter obliquely caught in a black hole. If the galaxy in question were spherical it would fold in on itself much more symmetrically, making it improbable that the fold would fail.
I'm more interested in how Samsung ever got so far down the road with a such an apparently flawed design. Samsung's engineers must have known it had big problems. Was this a classic case of dysfunctional corporate culture meaning nobody wanted to give the bosses bad news? I'm guessing so.
not sure how Samsung would profit from selling a limited early adopter edition (by reservation) of experimental product?
This isn't a mass consumer product. Samsung had explained that their customers would receive different kind of support and services, which means more cost to Samsung.
Samsung has a history of shipping crappy products just for the sake of being the first to do it. Their product line has always been a sprawling mess of overly-specialized niche products. It seems like they have a strategy of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Well, thankfully they do also ship many products that are the first to do something useful, so as a normal consumer that isn't a first-adopter for most things I appreciate that they create a market for many random innovations.
Samsung has a history of squirting out over fifty new phone models each year, hoping that a production rate in excess of 1.0 per week will be sufficient to cause at least one of those 50+ models to stick.
At least, they hope it will stick for a little while, long enough for them to find the next random thing that will stick for a little while.
True but they also occasionally put out really nice products. The S10e is a great phone, for example. In many ways it shows an attention to detail that used to be the province of a famous fruit branded company.
Their approach to product design seems pretty chaotic but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
It depends on the market segment maybe? I like my (older) Samsung TV and love my Samsung fridge. But those are not exactly contested markets that heavily impact stock performance.
Sure. First as in before they launch a deeply flawed product? Sometimes a half-assed launch is worse that a delayed one. I'm having a hard time touching any bleeding edge tech from Samsung when I know they're willing to dump this kind of stuff on the customer.
Do the hard work, then charge full price when it's done and ready.
It's not always the latest. It could be that they are able to move faster than all the other companies by being willing to take much higher risk.
I bought two mid range Samsung phones and they were terrible to the point I suspected they were fake. Then I bought a Samsung refrigerator that broke down often. It's not niche or anything, they just make everything quite hacky.
If the primary issue is "don't remove the protective screen" then I think that might be easy to overlook - to assume that educating the user will take the problem away, for example.
But that isn’t the only problem. The part of the screen behind the hinge is exposed. It’s easy for junk to get between the screen and hinge. Then, when opening and closing the dirt presses against the screen and damages it. Once damaged the screen seems to quickly fail.
I have worked for Samsung, elbeit in software division. Company culture is such that if a high level manager promised to deliver he will pressure his people to meet the deadline no matter if the product has flaws. And every step of the organisation will do the same. There is also little flow of bad information up the chain, every level will use multiple tactics to make impression everything is fine even if the building is on fire.
This has a lot to do with korean culture where keeping face and loyalty for his employer are two most important things in the life of a corporate drone.
And this, I think is how AI already has, and will gain, traction. Already lots of decision making in large companies is made with the aid of software tools.
That's a silicon valley term for "get used." They are saying that AI will get used to make corporate decisions. It comes from the startup scene where until your product is being used you're floundering on a frictionless surface.
The GP’s description sounds much more human ego driven than AI. There’s likely common use of gaslighting and lying in a company where impressions matter more than delivery.
It seems Hyundai doesn’t suffer from these problems, at least now. Is this just a difference in the priorities and expectations of leadership there? FWIW their reliability is generally considered to be nearly on par with Toyota and Honda now
This is the first thing that came to my mind as well. There is no way this was tested properly if all these reviewer units are failing immediately. There hasn’t even been time for pocket lint and dust to accumulate which will make it so much worse. A proper product would have been tested in all these conditions over and over and not released at all if the failure rate was this high. Feels like management blindness on this went all the way to the top and now they will reap the PR fallout and ridicule that they should. In a proper work environment that punished stupidity like this, some management heads should roll. Engineering heads should roll too but I suspect they told management that it wouldn’t work and management said to “just make it work.” Turns out the laws of physics are hard to rewrite.
>I'm more interested in how Samsung ever got so far down the road with a such an apparently flawed design.
Companies other than Apple do this all the time. That's what most "X beat Apple at innovation bringing Y to market" amount for.
For all the BS lip service about "innovation" (in an industry where few do any), Jobs Apple was thoroughly evolutionary. Each subsequent iPod iteration added something small but substantial, each iPhone iteration ditto.
There was no huge revolutionary steps between releases -- the product itself, and being well thought out and usable and good was the revolution.
The product idea wasn't revolutionary either (there were touch smartphones before the iPhone, and mp3 players before the iPod, tables before the iPad and so on -- the key wasn't that it was the revolutionary, but it was the first finally decent all-rounder -- as opposed to the first thrown-together mis-mash that works if you have low expectations and love tinkering as a "power user").
That said, Apple has increasingly been doing the same "pre-announce/release half-though BS" themselves past 2015 or so (e.g. the butterfly keyboard, the can Mac Pro, the touch strip, the wireless charger that never materialized, the 2+ years in the making Mac Pro replacement, etc).
> Was this a classic case of dysfunctional corporate culture meaning nobody wanted to give the bosses bad news?
I don't think Samsung would have done something like this for a mass consumer device, take for instance their recent S10. So no.
Galaxy Folds are different though. They are not 100% ready yet -- I'm pretty sure they knew about some of the shortcomings -- but this is still a major leap in mobile display technology and the Fold's release is anything, but, a typical, or 'classical' release. Based on their announcement on bold pricing, limited availability by reservation only, with different support and service model, it is fairly evident that the release is targeting those self-selected tech-savvy folks who want access to the incomplete product just to get a glimpse into the future. And, I'm surprised by the bold move that Samsung is willing to serve such niche group of customers.
That being said, I've never been so excited about a mobile device since I got my first iPhone in 2008. If I had a couple of grands to spare, I would be more than happy to sign up, just to see what it's like.
I admire Samsung for creating one of the first foldable phones. It is not the prettiest or the slickest design and I personally can't say that I would be interested in buying one.
However, I don't quite understand the bad press that Samsung is getting with this phone. I mean, sure it has some issues but it is the first generation of this new type of phone.
If you are going to buy this product, then you must be aware that you are going to be one of the Beta testers. There is no way around it. You just have to accept it and then when the Galaxy fold 2 comes out in a year or so, hopefully, they would have sorted out all those issues.
People expected the early-adopter compromises to be things like the price, the lack of waterproofing, the thickness, and the small screen on the front. For $2k, even an early-adopter device should not simply break.
Google Glass cost like 1.5k and did nothing useful or barely did anything at all for that matter. Was durability the main promise of the phone? No, the hinge was promised to be strong and the screen was promised to be flexible. They got parts of that correct. No one was ever promised an unbreakable device for 2k, and no one should even expect such a thing from the first ever folding smartphone.
First adopters pay a high price for testing bleeding edge technology, I can't think of many cases in which that hasn't been the case. This is technology that exists no where else. They need to recoup costs from R&D to make the improvements required to produce a real product.
This is how things used to be kickstarted before we had micro-fundraising. This is why everyone talks about how tech reaches the rich first, they have the funds to test this tech before us plebs, because it costs money to develop bleeding edge stuff. What bleeding edge, physical technology comes in at a low price point comparatively to the market rate? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
The way it was phrase made me interpret it, but I understand it now as break easily. My apologies.
And yeah, it's bleeding edge technology. So long as they honor warranties and those warranties don't exclude something like this, then it's roughly what I would expect from the first gen.
It's far from ideal, but Apple launched consumer phones that bent while hanging out in your pocket which cost around the same price and wasn't some R&D project. This is clearly not meant for your everyday consumer and is priced at a point that only people that want to test this phone will pay. The testing isn't in Samsungs favor, but it's par for the course as I would expect.
Where by "while hanging out in your pocket" you mean "applied a not inconsiderable amount of pressure to a specific area of the phone in a specific direction".
vs.
Samsung's "$2000 dollar phone fails the next day while performing its intended functions"
Oh. And of course Samsung's own phones bend in pockets as well
There's a huge difference between "unbreakable" and "half a dozen reviewers accidentally broke theirs within days".
There's also a huge difference between a developer preview and an early-adopter device. The Fold's marketing wasn't anything like that of the Glass. The latter required you to sign up as a developer to even buy one. It was also a totally new product category for developers to experiment with, not an evolutionary step forward in an existing category. Nobody's talking about exploring special apps that are only possible with the folding screen. That's all anyone ever talked about with Glass. The Fold was marketed as a consumer-facing device with a few compromises. It's planned to be sold in AT&T stores for goodness' sake.
Also reporting on Google Glass was not exactly positive either, to put it mildly. Mainly because it was expensive for a product with no real out of the box use case.
These phones also come with a warranty for if/when problems do show up.
I expected to see problems, I expected to see some outrage and jokes when things went wrong on the phone, but I never would have guessed at the number of comments saying things like "for $2000 it should never break!". That just seems so silly to me, it's a first gen product with a lot of new stuff in it. Expecting it to be perfect at any price is unreasonable.
Sure, if they stop honoring warranties, then I'm all for the bad press. But as of now, it seems like they are handling it about as good as I would expect. They delayed the launch, are looking into the issues, and will hopefully resolve them. Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible look that the review units broke so easily, but the phone also isn't out yet.
These are issues that should have come up in real-world testing though, and should've been solved then long before reviewers received units to use for extended periods of time. Problems crop up. The main selling point of the phone breaking completely within 24-48 hours is far worse than the usual kinds of issues that tend to show up in early production.
> I don't quite understand the bad press ... first generation ... Beta testers ... issues.
There's levels to issues. The iPhone 4 had issues but was still a blockbuster hit and the #1 phone in the world for several years. The Fold's problems are severe (phone breaks), very common (happened to multiple prominent reviewers) and occur after light use (within the first few days or for the label issue, immediately after unboxing). That's beyond "beta testing" and is just grossly incompetent design. This isn't some fly by night Chinese startup phone, this is the most expensive phone that one of the 2 biggest phone designers for the last 10 years has ever shipped.
> I don't quite understand the bad press that Samsung is getting with this phone.
That the issues appeared so rapidly indicates to me that they didn't even do the basic test of letting some employees use it as their daily driver for a while.
If that's the case, then Samsung should get a lot of bad press about it. It's a failure of even basic testing competence.
Alright, I’ll take the heat for asking the obvious question:
Who would ever need a folding phone? This sounds like a silly idea. Apart from the obvious party trick (“hold my drink - ima fold this phone in half”) I don’t see any reason for a phone to fold halfway down the middle into a ridiculously thick package that can’t be comfortable carried inside any reasonably sized pants pocket.
> and phones are too small to use for non-trivial purposes
I think this is probably the sticking point for people who don't see the point of this. At least for me, there's no unserved gulf between my phone and a computer. I've had a tablet in the past, but there was really just no use case where the tablet was the top choice over both my phone and computer; I always preferred one of those over the tablet.
I use my ipad mini for reading and watching TV in bed without disturbing my partner.
For that it is a cracking little device, a phone screen is too small to read comfortably and if I'm watching a movie in bed the ipad is the perfect size.
Originally bought the device for testing and it ended up been the thing I spend the most time looking at after a desktop/laptop.
Enough that I'm considering buying the new ipad mini and giving the old one to my stepson.
Just wait until you get older and your eyes start going, then you'll be faced with the choice of taking off your glasses and bringing the phone ridiculously close to your face, or using giant text sizes and seeing only 30 words per screen. Then will you see the sense of a large screen that is portable.
(I feel silly writing this, but just in case it's not clear, I am referring to a generic "you", and not you in particular.)
People routinely clamor for ridiculously-thick phones already so they can get huge batteries. I don't think the size (effectively two phones) is a big deal; I already carry 2 phones in my pocket pretty routinely with no problems.
This folding phone seems targeted at letting people carry a phone with a gigantic screen. People that are buying XL versions of existing phones (a surprising number of people) that want even bigger screens (that still fit in the pocket) seem to be the target, and/or people who want a 2-in-1 phone+tablet.
I don't really like large phones, but I do like using tablets. Having the choice between a phone-sized screen and a tablet-sized screen in a single device seems personally desirable to me; I don't really care much about the device size itself as long as it still fits in my pocket (unlike the tablet it'd be replacing).
> People routinely clamor for ridiculously-thick phones already so they can get huge batteries.
Not even that thick! When your battery is about 4mm thick and only takes up part of the phone, you can roughly double the battery life by taking the phone from 7.5mm to 10.5mm.
One advantage is accessibility for people with limited vision. A folding phone can have about the same screen area as a small tablet, while still fitting in a pocket or handbag. A larger screen is immensely more comfortable to use if your font size and UI has been scaled up by 300%.
This only applies in a hypothetical future where someone figures out how to make a durable folding display though.
I have bad vision (something like -8), but phone is the device I don’t have any problem with. I just keep it at 10-15 cm from me eyes and I can use it very comfortably. Can’t say it about Laptop for example, not usable without glasses.
I definitely miss my G1 - I loved the slide-out keyboard, and the "trackball" pointer device. If I could have those two things in a modern phone, perhaps slightly thicker with a larger battery, that would be almost perfect.
But what perfection would actually look like to me would also being able to use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and (somehow) outputting the video to a real monitor. At that point, it would be a suitable on-the-go replacement for most laptop needs.
I really didnt mind when phones were thicker. I'd be happy if my phone was thicker now if it meant having a bigger battery. I'd be even happier if my phone was thicker now and it meant I had a screen that's (optionally) twice as big in my pocket. Just some things off the top of my head that I'd like to have a bigger screen, but not carry around a tablet for: taking notes, maps in the car, gaming, netflix.
"All this week, I kept coming back to a thought about how we use our phones. We pull them out to check something quickly, but then, all of a sudden, a half-hour disappears scrolling Instagram or Twitter or whatever. It’s a real problem.
But it’s a problem I didn’t really have with the Galaxy Fold. When I was using the tiny screen, I just wanted to get something done quickly and put it away because the screen was small, and I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to unfold it.
On the flip side, when I was using Galaxy Fold unfolded, I was really using it. I had to hold it in two hands, and it felt much more like using a tablet, an active device I was choosing to use. It requires some small measure of intentionality — more than a phone, anyway.
I found myself using it in meetings, and nobody batted an eye. I was reviewing docs for the meeting, but I could have just as easily been messing around on social media. But think about the social rules of a work meeting: somebody messing around on their phone is a jerk, but somebody using a tablet is more likely to be doing something relevant. The Fold feels like a different device with different social rules, and that’s fascinating."
This is just my point of view, I don't claim this as an answer for anyone but myself. However, back when I was using Android and Windows Phone, I found that carrying an extra large phablet like the Galaxy Mega, Nexus 6, or Lumia 940XL gave me a very useful middle ground for the use cases you quoted from The Verge. The phones were big enough that at first glance (especially the Mega) they looked like small tablets, and were socially acceptable in work situations. Likewise, they were still phones so they fit in my (admittedly large) pocket even with a thin case.
I'm on iPhone now and I've "regressed" back to a relatively normal phone size with the iPhone 7. I almost got a Plus but I had an iPhone 6 before that and got comfortable with the smaller size. I'd probably be fine with the SE at this point, but since Apple has dropped that form factor I'm not going backwards.
So yes, I can see a place for a folding device when one needs to carry both a phone and a tablet, but for me at least, I can move to a phablet for that.
Personally I've never had a use for a tablet- I literally bought an iPad once and returned it the next day because it didn't serve a purpose for me. Of course that's not true for some people.
But I do sometimes have a use for the large screen on my phone, and I would definitely have a use for a smaller (one-hand-sized) phone screen, so having both of those available in one device appeals to me.
My cynical side says that this will probably doom the whole idea of a foldable phone. The manufacturers want us to be distracted and spend that half an hour scrolling social media. They want us to be sucked in to using it constantly. They don't benefit from encouraging us to only use our gadgets when we've deliberately decided that we want to. And so it seems likely they'll kind of forget about this once the novelty wears off.
What effect this has on your desire to purchase and use devices is up to you.
Nobody needs a folding phone, but nobody strictly needs a lot of stuff. I'm waiting on them releasing a digital scroll, personally. I'm sure I don't need one though.
Most women's pant front pockets stopped being able to hold a phone many phone generations ago, and I personally rarely feel comfortable leaving my phone in my back pocket where it will easily fall. Moreover, most skirts or dresses don't have pockets at all. Women seem to have adjusted just fine to phones that don't fit in their pockets, I doubt that the rest of the population will have trouble adjusting.
Additionally, I read a lot more when I have my tablet with me, as it's easy to pop it out and read an article or chapter when I'm waiting for the bus, etc, and it's not tedious to read on like it is on my phone, as the tablet has a larger screen. I also rarely carry my tablet around as it seems superfluous with my computer and phone.
That's why I, at least, am jumping at the chance to have a device that is both easier to read, and not as big as my tablet.
I'd love a folding phone. I often find myself doing several things at once which requires a lot of switching back and forth between apps (say I'm chatting with a friend while browsing the internet, or I remember something while chatting and I want to send him a link, but I need to find the right page first - or I want to take notes and would like to have whatever reference I'm using open without having to switch back and forth).
I love the multitasking on my iPad, so a smartphone that can turn into a mini-tablet that might support similar forms of multitasking sounds awesome to me. I'm just gonna wait until somebody releases a model that doesn't cost me an arm and doesn't break within a week.
I've been waiting 20 years for a small phone with AR glasses and virtual keyboard and touchpad. What I don't want is a bloody folding phone, which is still too ridiculously small to actually work on. Damn.
I would love to have a phone that I can open up to tablet size, so I only need one device for both jobs. Find something too big for the small screen? Open it up, continue. Taking out the tablet works (especially with the various sync techs for websites), but is not really a "nice" workflow.
Would a Psion-like PDA like the Cosmo Communicator [1] be a more workable solution compared to a hard-to-engineer folding screen? When closed, the PDA acts like a phone. When you open it, you have a bigger screen and a keyboard for entry.
The contrast with the Huawei Mate X is stark. The latter has the folding screen on the outside of the phone, which means 1) a wider, and thus safer, bend radius while simultaneously being able to properly close (no lingering gap) and 2) (seemingly?) no ability for space to develop under the screen for debris to get in. Huawei having just the one screen also makes for an overall cleaner design. It makes me wonder why Samsung chose the more problematic inside-fold route.
I think it's because Samsung is trying to protect the screen. I'm curious to see how the Mate X will perform. I won't be surprised if the screen wrapping around the outside turns out to be really fragile. People are notoriously hard on their phones (especially on the edges) and the Mate X is a phone that has an exposed screen that can't be covered in glass and can't be hidden in a screen case.
Samsung's approach has a better chance of succeeding in the long run simply because it protects the screen, but they clearly need to refine their approach. Without some serious materials wizardry, Huawei's design seems hopelessly flawed. According to this article, uneven pressure may be responsible for breaking the Samsung, think of what could happen with the exposed screen on the Huawei.
My pocket is already a sleeve, because I don't carry anything else in the pocket where I carry my phone. But the problem is that I drop the phone occasionally (for me, it happens maybe once in a half a year, but it would be cumbersome to replace the screen every half a year, so I use a protective case).
But currently all phones have an exposed screen ??? You have to go back to clamshell phones or blackberry designs to have protected screens. If you don't buy a shell or screen protector, your screen gets rattled by coins, keys, and various objects.
If you have a case on eg. an iPhone then it extends slightly beyond the screen at the sides, which probably makes quite a big difference in protecting particularly the sides of the screen.
Though it does mean a corner could get the brunt of a drop. wondering how OLEDs will cope with that. From iFixit's article about the why they think the fold broke, I'm guessing not well.
The Huawei mate X already had a visible crease in the middle when unfolded precisely because the radius is larger and thus the excess plastic needs to go somewhere. I guess they can still fix the protective plastic properly so there is no ingress.
We have been designing space vessels and spacesuits for the better part of a century with moving or flexible or rotating hinges that can protect every thing and everyone inside from the vacuum of space and transfer of moisture and debris. This article from iFixit and the included photo from The Verge clearly explain and display how Samsung Galaxy designers missed the mark of creating a simple inexpensive hinge mechanism that would have prevented the OLED from being exposed to any external material or uneven pressure.
It's probably a case of black matter caught in a dark hole. If the galaxy in question were sperical, it would fold in on itself much more symmetrically.
Is there even a need for such a device? Or are those desperate attempts to sell new features?
From what I have experienced, the smartphone market is basically saturated. My peers and I no longer have a need for buying new devices. Basic stuff won't get any faster and 5 cameras are not worth a new device.
What's interesting is they ran the folding machines and even showed everyone to create confidence, but they don't seem to have dogfooded.
Wouldn't it make sense for a company like Samsung to hand out some of the devices to their own staff to use? I'm sure you can find realistic use cases among the staff of such a large company. If you're afraid of leaks give it to the family or upper management. By the looks of it even a handful of phones would have revealed the issues.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadOutside that context, the name "Galaxy Fold" wouldn't register as a phone with me either.
How can a galactic entity "fail"? Does this affect us? Surely not since such things would be on the timespans of millions to billions of years. What is a "Galaxy Fold"?
After a few seconds considering such questions, I realized what it was actually about.
This isn't a mass consumer product. Samsung had explained that their customers would receive different kind of support and services, which means more cost to Samsung.
At least, they hope it will stick for a little while, long enough for them to find the next random thing that will stick for a little while.
Their approach to product design seems pretty chaotic but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
Sure. First as in before they launch a deeply flawed product? Sometimes a half-assed launch is worse that a delayed one. I'm having a hard time touching any bleeding edge tech from Samsung when I know they're willing to dump this kind of stuff on the customer.
Do the hard work, then charge full price when it's done and ready.
I bought two mid range Samsung phones and they were terrible to the point I suspected they were fake. Then I bought a Samsung refrigerator that broke down often. It's not niche or anything, they just make everything quite hacky.
eg stop dirt getting in
This has a lot to do with korean culture where keeping face and loyalty for his employer are two most important things in the life of a corporate drone.
This reminds me of a cool analogy: big companies behave like artifical general intelligence, very smart, but very unlike human intelligence.
I think he wanted to know how on earth 'AI' will solve this. People will claim AI can solve anything...
But surely, preventing a PR and product release disaster would count as being loyal to the company and helping the company to keep face.
Companies other than Apple do this all the time. That's what most "X beat Apple at innovation bringing Y to market" amount for.
For all the BS lip service about "innovation" (in an industry where few do any), Jobs Apple was thoroughly evolutionary. Each subsequent iPod iteration added something small but substantial, each iPhone iteration ditto.
There was no huge revolutionary steps between releases -- the product itself, and being well thought out and usable and good was the revolution.
The product idea wasn't revolutionary either (there were touch smartphones before the iPhone, and mp3 players before the iPod, tables before the iPad and so on -- the key wasn't that it was the revolutionary, but it was the first finally decent all-rounder -- as opposed to the first thrown-together mis-mash that works if you have low expectations and love tinkering as a "power user").
That said, Apple has increasingly been doing the same "pre-announce/release half-though BS" themselves past 2015 or so (e.g. the butterfly keyboard, the can Mac Pro, the touch strip, the wireless charger that never materialized, the 2+ years in the making Mac Pro replacement, etc).
I don't think Samsung would have done something like this for a mass consumer device, take for instance their recent S10. So no.
Galaxy Folds are different though. They are not 100% ready yet -- I'm pretty sure they knew about some of the shortcomings -- but this is still a major leap in mobile display technology and the Fold's release is anything, but, a typical, or 'classical' release. Based on their announcement on bold pricing, limited availability by reservation only, with different support and service model, it is fairly evident that the release is targeting those self-selected tech-savvy folks who want access to the incomplete product just to get a glimpse into the future. And, I'm surprised by the bold move that Samsung is willing to serve such niche group of customers.
That being said, I've never been so excited about a mobile device since I got my first iPhone in 2008. If I had a couple of grands to spare, I would be more than happy to sign up, just to see what it's like.
However, I don't quite understand the bad press that Samsung is getting with this phone. I mean, sure it has some issues but it is the first generation of this new type of phone.
If you are going to buy this product, then you must be aware that you are going to be one of the Beta testers. There is no way around it. You just have to accept it and then when the Galaxy fold 2 comes out in a year or so, hopefully, they would have sorted out all those issues.
First adopters pay a high price for testing bleeding edge technology, I can't think of many cases in which that hasn't been the case. This is technology that exists no where else. They need to recoup costs from R&D to make the improvements required to produce a real product.
This is how things used to be kickstarted before we had micro-fundraising. This is why everyone talks about how tech reaches the rich first, they have the funds to test this tech before us plebs, because it costs money to develop bleeding edge stuff. What bleeding edge, physical technology comes in at a low price point comparatively to the market rate? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Nobody was asking for an unbreakable device.
And yeah, it's bleeding edge technology. So long as they honor warranties and those warranties don't exclude something like this, then it's roughly what I would expect from the first gen.
It's far from ideal, but Apple launched consumer phones that bent while hanging out in your pocket which cost around the same price and wasn't some R&D project. This is clearly not meant for your everyday consumer and is priced at a point that only people that want to test this phone will pay. The testing isn't in Samsungs favor, but it's par for the course as I would expect.
Where by "while hanging out in your pocket" you mean "applied a not inconsiderable amount of pressure to a specific area of the phone in a specific direction".
vs.
Samsung's "$2000 dollar phone fails the next day while performing its intended functions"
Oh. And of course Samsung's own phones bend in pockets as well
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Nobody anywhere is expecting an unbreakable phone and I'm not sure why you'd want to interpret his comment as saying that.
There's a huge difference between "unbreakable" and "half a dozen reviewers accidentally broke theirs within days".
There's also a huge difference between a developer preview and an early-adopter device. The Fold's marketing wasn't anything like that of the Glass. The latter required you to sign up as a developer to even buy one. It was also a totally new product category for developers to experiment with, not an evolutionary step forward in an existing category. Nobody's talking about exploring special apps that are only possible with the folding screen. That's all anyone ever talked about with Glass. The Fold was marketed as a consumer-facing device with a few compromises. It's planned to be sold in AT&T stores for goodness' sake.
I expected to see problems, I expected to see some outrage and jokes when things went wrong on the phone, but I never would have guessed at the number of comments saying things like "for $2000 it should never break!". That just seems so silly to me, it's a first gen product with a lot of new stuff in it. Expecting it to be perfect at any price is unreasonable.
Sure, if they stop honoring warranties, then I'm all for the bad press. But as of now, it seems like they are handling it about as good as I would expect. They delayed the launch, are looking into the issues, and will hopefully resolve them. Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible look that the review units broke so easily, but the phone also isn't out yet.
But warranties aren't "get out of jail free" cards that excuse a failure of basic product engineering practices like actual real-world testing.
Maybe they can even market this as "no charge required, ever", hell they can save money on packaging a charging brick!
"Foldable phone"
first thing to break, after a few days?
The foldable part. And the phone...
----
is like ship a "wheelchair" and then see the wheel break after first use.
How exactly defend this???
It should be perfect.
At least for the first few weeks.
There's levels to issues. The iPhone 4 had issues but was still a blockbuster hit and the #1 phone in the world for several years. The Fold's problems are severe (phone breaks), very common (happened to multiple prominent reviewers) and occur after light use (within the first few days or for the label issue, immediately after unboxing). That's beyond "beta testing" and is just grossly incompetent design. This isn't some fly by night Chinese startup phone, this is the most expensive phone that one of the 2 biggest phone designers for the last 10 years has ever shipped.
That the issues appeared so rapidly indicates to me that they didn't even do the basic test of letting some employees use it as their daily driver for a while.
If that's the case, then Samsung should get a lot of bad press about it. It's a failure of even basic testing competence.
They're selling it as a real product, not a beta test—and charging correspondingly.
I'll go to my grave using the old-school meanings: "alpha" means that "the devs think it's done", and "beta" means "QA testers think its done".
Who would ever need a folding phone? This sounds like a silly idea. Apart from the obvious party trick (“hold my drink - ima fold this phone in half”) I don’t see any reason for a phone to fold halfway down the middle into a ridiculously thick package that can’t be comfortable carried inside any reasonably sized pants pocket.
A folding display solves that issue. Small when it needs to be, large when you want it to be.
Yeah, it's thicker than a typical phone, but that's usually not the limiting dimension when determining pocketablity.
I think this is probably the sticking point for people who don't see the point of this. At least for me, there's no unserved gulf between my phone and a computer. I've had a tablet in the past, but there was really just no use case where the tablet was the top choice over both my phone and computer; I always preferred one of those over the tablet.
For that it is a cracking little device, a phone screen is too small to read comfortably and if I'm watching a movie in bed the ipad is the perfect size.
Originally bought the device for testing and it ended up been the thing I spend the most time looking at after a desktop/laptop.
Enough that I'm considering buying the new ipad mini and giving the old one to my stepson.
(I feel silly writing this, but just in case it's not clear, I am referring to a generic "you", and not you in particular.)
This folding phone seems targeted at letting people carry a phone with a gigantic screen. People that are buying XL versions of existing phones (a surprising number of people) that want even bigger screens (that still fit in the pocket) seem to be the target, and/or people who want a 2-in-1 phone+tablet.
I don't really like large phones, but I do like using tablets. Having the choice between a phone-sized screen and a tablet-sized screen in a single device seems personally desirable to me; I don't really care much about the device size itself as long as it still fits in my pocket (unlike the tablet it'd be replacing).
Not even that thick! When your battery is about 4mm thick and only takes up part of the phone, you can roughly double the battery life by taking the phone from 7.5mm to 10.5mm.
This only applies in a hypothetical future where someone figures out how to make a durable folding display though.
But what perfection would actually look like to me would also being able to use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and (somehow) outputting the video to a real monitor. At that point, it would be a suitable on-the-go replacement for most laptop needs.
I keep being slightly tempted to get one as an on-call/ultraportable laptop, since it's possible to connect various USB-C bits as required.
"All this week, I kept coming back to a thought about how we use our phones. We pull them out to check something quickly, but then, all of a sudden, a half-hour disappears scrolling Instagram or Twitter or whatever. It’s a real problem.
But it’s a problem I didn’t really have with the Galaxy Fold. When I was using the tiny screen, I just wanted to get something done quickly and put it away because the screen was small, and I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to unfold it.
On the flip side, when I was using Galaxy Fold unfolded, I was really using it. I had to hold it in two hands, and it felt much more like using a tablet, an active device I was choosing to use. It requires some small measure of intentionality — more than a phone, anyway.
I found myself using it in meetings, and nobody batted an eye. I was reviewing docs for the meeting, but I could have just as easily been messing around on social media. But think about the social rules of a work meeting: somebody messing around on their phone is a jerk, but somebody using a tablet is more likely to be doing something relevant. The Fold feels like a different device with different social rules, and that’s fascinating."
I'm on iPhone now and I've "regressed" back to a relatively normal phone size with the iPhone 7. I almost got a Plus but I had an iPhone 6 before that and got comfortable with the smaller size. I'd probably be fine with the SE at this point, but since Apple has dropped that form factor I'm not going backwards.
So yes, I can see a place for a folding device when one needs to carry both a phone and a tablet, but for me at least, I can move to a phablet for that.
But I do sometimes have a use for the large screen on my phone, and I would definitely have a use for a smaller (one-hand-sized) phone screen, so having both of those available in one device appeals to me.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18498904/samsung-galaxy-f...
My cynical side says that this will probably doom the whole idea of a foldable phone. The manufacturers want us to be distracted and spend that half an hour scrolling social media. They want us to be sucked in to using it constantly. They don't benefit from encouraging us to only use our gadgets when we've deliberately decided that we want to. And so it seems likely they'll kind of forget about this once the novelty wears off.
What effect this has on your desire to purchase and use devices is up to you.
I can't imagine a use case for this that would make it appealing to me. But apparently there are a lot of people who can.
Different strokes and all that.
Additionally, I read a lot more when I have my tablet with me, as it's easy to pop it out and read an article or chapter when I'm waiting for the bus, etc, and it's not tedious to read on like it is on my phone, as the tablet has a larger screen. I also rarely carry my tablet around as it seems superfluous with my computer and phone.
That's why I, at least, am jumping at the chance to have a device that is both easier to read, and not as big as my tablet.
I love the multitasking on my iPad, so a smartphone that can turn into a mini-tablet that might support similar forms of multitasking sounds awesome to me. I'm just gonna wait until somebody releases a model that doesn't cost me an arm and doesn't break within a week.
I would love to have a phone that I can open up to tablet size, so I only need one device for both jobs. Find something too big for the small screen? Open it up, continue. Taking out the tablet works (especially with the various sync techs for websites), but is not really a "nice" workflow.
[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/
Too bad I don't trust Android.
Samsung's approach has a better chance of succeeding in the long run simply because it protects the screen, but they clearly need to refine their approach. Without some serious materials wizardry, Huawei's design seems hopelessly flawed. According to this article, uneven pressure may be responsible for breaking the Samsung, think of what could happen with the exposed screen on the Huawei.
'nullify' here is subjective. Others might say 'reduce' instead. For some, especially current sleeve or folio users, this could be acceptable.
You can not use a folio case because the screen is on the outside. You have to remove the phone entirely from the case to unfold it.
Which doesn't really exist yet.
From what I have experienced, the smartphone market is basically saturated. My peers and I no longer have a need for buying new devices. Basic stuff won't get any faster and 5 cameras are not worth a new device.
Wouldn't it make sense for a company like Samsung to hand out some of the devices to their own staff to use? I'm sure you can find realistic use cases among the staff of such a large company. If you're afraid of leaks give it to the family or upper management. By the looks of it even a handful of phones would have revealed the issues.
If you're afraid of leaks, those might be the worst people to give it to.