This is going to be a weird review. It’ll be weird because, as I’m sure you’ve heard, several reviewers have experienced their Galaxy Fold review unit screens breaking a day or two after receiving them. Some of those breaks happened because Samsung didn’t warn reviewers that a “protective layer” that looks exactly like a removable screen protector is not removable at all, but instead it’s a “part of the display structure.” At least two outlets — The Verge and CNBC — had review units with similarly catastrophic results but much more mysterious causes. I still don’t know how I got the bulge in my first Fold’s hinge that ultimately destroyed its flexible OLED panel, but it happened. As of this writing, Samsung hasn’t said what the cause might be. And since I and the journalists at CNBC returned the broken units to Samsung so we could get replacements, we’re waiting on Samsung to offer up an explanation. Update: at 10:00AM ET on Monday, April 22nd, three days after the original publication of this review, Samsung announced that it is indefinitely delaying the release of the Galaxy Fold. There may even be design changes in the works to improve the durability of the screen. The rest of our review follows as is. Instead of looking at it in the spirit of reviewing it “as if” the screen issue was resolved, consider it now a review “as if” it had been released to the public in the same form that I reviewed it. We will, of course, re-review the device after Samsung tells us what, if any, changes it is making to the design. I’ll just say it right out front: I cannot recommend that anybody buy this thing until we know what’s up with these broken screens. The whole situation isn’t quite the fiasco of exploding Note 7 smartphones, as nobody’s safety is threatened, but it is, well, weird. So here’s what I’m going to do: review the Galaxy Fold as if this whole terrible screen breaking thing will get resolved. Don’t take that to mean that I think it absolutely will be or that I think you should dismiss these problems. Entirely the opposite: you should not buy this phone until we get more information — and even then, it’s not a great purchase. But there’s enough to say about this device, its foibles, and the future it promises that I want to tell you about it. Because the other weird thing about the Galaxy Fold is this: I have never used a device with this many problems that I have liked this much. The Samsung Galaxy Fold essentially takes the recent Galaxy S10 Plus and turns it into a platform for a wild new kind of device. It has a flexible 7.3-inch OLED screen that folds up, with a second little screen on the outside. The result is a tiny Android tablet that folds up into phone that’s much smaller than a tablet — albeit much thicker. Because it’s a new kind of device, there are a thousand things to talk about, the kinds of things that we don’t usually need to address when we’re talking about plain old smartphones. Which way does the screen fold? Is plastic really durable enough? Is there a gap when it’s folded? Is it too heavy? What is the hinge mechanism like? How does the software translate from a small screen to a big screen? Is there a visible crease in the screen? If there is a crease, how noticeable is it, and should we be forgiving of it in the same way we forgive notches? The more important questions to answer are different. Is a foldable phone fundamentally different than either a phone or a tablet? Does it help you get more done or have more fun or — maybe — help foster a healthier relationship between you and your gadget? Ultimately, is a folding phone better in some tangible way than a regular phone? I’ll try to answer as many of those questions as I can, but I can only gesture at some of them. What I can definitively say is that at $1,980 and with a cloud hanging over the Fold’s reliability, you should not buy it. The Galaxy Fold is also beset with issues that stack up into a pile that you can’t excuse away by saying this is just a first-generation product. There are basic user experience issues that are unacceptable on any smartphone, much less one that costs two grand. What you should do is head to a store and play around with it because it is legitimately a marvelous thing to play with. Beyond that, it’s a status symbol, a curiosity, and a little tease at a possible future. Let’s start with the main screen, the big one on the inside that folds. On an objective basis, using the same standards we apply to any smartphone, the screen on the Galaxy Fold is bad. And that is wild to say because, again, subjectively, I deeply enjoy using it. The biggest issue everybody wants to know about is the crease. There’s just no pretending that it isn’t there or that you don’t see it or feel it when you run your finger across it. Especially when you’re looking at it from an angle, it’s just a really obvious line through the middle of the screen. What’s worse, it’s a really obvious line that has two different color temperatures on either side of it when you look at it from an angle. The crease is nearly invisible when you look straight at it, but it’s clearly visible at an angle But when you start using the Fold, it tends to disappear. I stopped seeing it; it is actually difficult to spot when you’re looking at the Fold straight-on, which means that my subjective experience is just that it’s a great little 7-inch tablet. The screen is just slightly smaller than the iPad mini’s, but the Galaxy Fold has radically smaller bezels. If that were the whole story, I’d tell you that the crease is a sort of modern version of the notch: a thing that is annoying but ultimately something you can get used to. I could tell you that it’s one of the things that is just going to happen on a folding phone, then move on to say that the colors are super vivid, the text is sharp, and it gets plenty bright. But I can’t tell you that because the crease is just the start of this screen’s issues. I am sympathetic to the argument that one of the first folding smartphone screens should be judged differently than the screen on a top-tier smartphone like an iPhone or regular Galaxy S phone. But even if you lower or change the bar, you really can’t paper over the rest of the problems with this screen. The blunt fact of the Galaxy Fold’s main screen is that it’s made of plastic and covered over with that thick, polymer layer. It isn’t as smooth as glass, and it’s nowhere near as hard. My second review unit has a little “dimple” in one spot, and in just a couple days of use, it has picked up a half-dozen little nicks. Those flaws are hard to see when the screen is on, but I shudder to think what this plastic layer is going to look like in a month, six months, or a couple of years. I’ve asked Samsung if it plans to have some sort of extended warranty program to replace that screen protector thing, but it doesn’t have a comment on that. Here’s my suggestion: every Fold owner should be able to get that plastic layer replaced by Samsung on a regular basis. (And, no, do not try to peel it off yourself.) Although Samsung wouldn’t comment on most of the questions I’ve been asking in the course of doing this review, it did have a statement about the dings and nicks on the screen. The main display of the Galaxy Fold is made with a new, advanced polymer layer and adhesive that’s flexible and tough enough to endure repeated folding actions with an extra protective layer to guard against impact. The protective layer is susceptible to blemishes and marks in certain circumstances, but they will not hinder your experience or the content you are viewing. I’m not done. There’s one more problem, one that I had hoped to never see again: the dreaded “jelly scroll.” One side of the screen scrolls faster than the other side. I think it’s because, unlike with most other phones, the guts that run the screen are probably on the side instead of on the top or bottom. It’s the sort of thing you won’t notice until it’s pointed out to you. Then you notice it. Then you can’t not see it. Another thing that’s hard to unsee is the notch at the top right of the screen that houses the cameras. It’s really big. That’s fine when you’re just reading or browsing around on the internet, but it’s terrible when you’re watching video. YouTube, Netflix, and HBO Now all get cut off by the notch. The only fix is to dig way into the Fold’s settings to find the checkbox that hides the entire top bar of the phone. It works, but it means you lose a bunch of screen real estate as the status bar gets pushed down. The screen picks up dings, has a bad jelly effect on scrolling, and many mechanical points of failure — but it’s still enjoyable to use Even if you’re willing to forgive all of that (and you really shouldn’t), there are still a lot of moving parts. Literally: the hinge behind the screen; the bending of the screen itself; the fact that there are tiny gaps right at the bend point where debris could get in underneath the screen and damage it; the weird plastic rail that serves as a bezel and holds the whole thing down, under which the screen probably needs to be able to move just a little. Those are all potential points of failure. One of those things might have been the root cause of what broke the screen on my original review unit. And yet, using the Galaxy Fold in tablet mode is a joy. It’s great to have a huge screen for watching videos and reading. You can get real tabs in your browser, across the top where they belong. You can get a full three-column layout in Gmail. Plus, this might actually be my favorite Kindle book reading device — and I own a top-flight Kindle Oasis. You can rotate it sideways and get two columns of text, and you get all of the Android app features that work better with a real touchscreen than they do on a traditional Kindle. The screen is terrible, but quite often, using the screen is wonderful. If this were a traditional phone, we’d be spending a lot of time talking about the standard stuff you talk about with phones: the speed, the specs, the cameras, and so on. The bottom line for all of that on the Galaxy Fold is that it performs very well. It’s fast, it has a ton of storage, and it has remarkably good battery life. It also takes very good photos. That’s because the core guts of the phone are very nearly the same as the Galaxy S10 Plus. It has a Snapdragon 855 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. I have had zero problems with performance, and I have been able to get as many as five app windows open at the same time — likely thanks to that capacious RAM. Gaming works great, too: I could hold 30 fps in Fortnite with pretty aggressive graphics settings. In terms of pure specs, the Galaxy Fold holds up — especially on battery life There are six cameras. On the back is a wide, regular, and telephoto lens. The selfie camera on the front is the same as the Galaxy S10, and the dual-selfie cameras inside are the same as the S10 Plus.<doc-sep>Shares of Samsung Electronics dropped more than 3 percent on Thursday after multiple accounts emerged of its cutting-edge folding phone breaking ahead of the device's retail launch. The phone, named the Galaxy Fold and priced at $1,980, has only been given to gadget reviewers so far, but several people have reported that their screens appear to be disconnecting and permanently flashing on or off. Samsung started taking pre-orders for the Galaxy Fold last weekend, but quickly ran out of availability, suggesting supply is constrained at least until its retail launch. The wider technology sector in South Korea also saw declines on the day, with shares of SK Hynix and LG Electronics declining 1.25 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively. Samsung's stock decline was related to the early reports of the Galaxy Fold breaking, said Daniel Yoo, head of global strategy and research at Kiwoom Securities. On top of that, investors were also responding to concerns about Samsung's part in the roll out of the next generation 5G wireless standard, he added. "With Qualcomm and Apple deal, expectation for 5G was very high," Yoo said.<doc-sep>
It's a boat? It's a plane? No, it's a 'seaglider.' And it goes fast...really fast Boston-based REGENT's "seaglider" is a mix between a boat and an aircraft with a top speed of 180 mph. NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: SVP and Director at IBM Research Arvind Krishna speaks on stage during the 2016 Wired Business Conference on June 16, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for Wired) Viral 'Charlie bit my finger' video to be taken down. Here's why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, gives his opening remarks flanked by local state delegation members prior to signing legislation that seeks to punish social media platforms that remove conservative ideas from their sites, inside Florida International University's MARC building in Miami on Monday, May 24, 2021. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via AP) (CNN Business) — The Samsung Galaxy Fold is launching next week as planned, despite reports from some early reviewers that their devices broke after just a few days of use. It might seem like a risky move for Samsung (SSNLF) to move forward with the launch on schedule, but the company has a lot riding on the luxury $1,980 device — a 4.6 inch-smartphone that opens up into a 7.3-inch tablet. Analysts say the device could shake up the mobile device market, which has plateaued in terms of both sales and innovative new features. Pre-orders of the Galaxy Fold have already sold out online. (Samsung declined to share how many were originally available.) But now Samsung is grappling with news that some reviewers discovered defective hinges and their screens broke after removing the Fold’s protective film. In a statement sent to CNN Business, the company said “removing the protective layer or adding adhesives to the main display may cause damage. We will ensure this information is clearly delivered to our customers.” Moving ahead would be risky for any company, but the stakes are higher for Samsung given its history. The South Korean company has worked hard for the past two and a half years to win back consumer trust following its Galaxy Note 7 debacle. Millions of those devices had to be recalled due to reports of exploding batteries. Despite this week’s setback, experts say the Galaxy Fold isn’t necessarily dead on arrival. “Was the [Galaxy Fold] risky? Of course,” IDC research director Ramon Llamas told CNN Business. “But risk travels hand in hand with innovation, and something that companies have learned to embrace. Very rarely does a first-generation product — especially something as hyped up as this one — live up to expectations.” It’s currently unclear if these are isolated incidents or part of a larger issue, but not pushing back its April 26 launch potentially suggests Samsung believes it is the former. The company said it will “thoroughly inspect these units in person to determine the cause of the matter.” Either way, it will be critical for Samsung to be transparent about what it learns and move swiftly. “Samsung needs to look into these cases quickly and be clear with the public, particularly those with pre-orders, about the cause of the issues, how they will be fixed, and how they will be prevented moving forwards,” said Stephanie Tomsett, research analyst at ABI Research. “Consumers are likely to be concerned about this news, and their concerns need to be addressed to ensure that this new device is as popular as previously expected.” Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg/Getty Images An attendee holds a Samsung Galaxy Fold device during an unveiling event in New York. Following the Galaxy Note 7 recall, the company redesigned its battery system to prevent future explosions. It also benefited from the fast-paced cycle of the smartphone industry, which allowed consumers to shift their focus to the Galaxy S8. “It worked,” Llamas said. “If anything, setbacks like these tend to bolster companies’ drive to get it right.” Samsung doesn’t want to be so safe that it abandons its reputation as an industry innovator. “We have arrived at the point where innovation has reached a plateau, and most new features that companies hawk are variations on a theme we have seen before,” Llamas said. “Bigger screen? Seen that. Camera taking great pictures? Got that too. And staying on that path practically dooms the market into becoming a commodity business, and no one wants that.” At the same time, senior analyst Ben Stanton of Canalys called the Galaxy Fold “not a great risk” from a business perspective.