Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is Ready to Return

Samsung has reportedly identified at least one of the Galaxy Fold’s flaws and are now deciding on a new launch date. That’s the word out of Korea, where Samsung’s mobile boss, DJ Koh, suggested that they identified a “defect” that was allowing substances to enter the Fold and cause damage to its display.

Koh shared the news with the Korea Herald, saying that they will “reach a conclusion in a couple of days” over a new launch date.

To back up for a second, remember that we got to this point because a handful of Galaxy Fold review units ran into issues that forced Samsung to pause the phone’s launch. A couple of issues were self-inflicted, at least one was a failed device, and another couple were because substances found their way through the phone’s hinge, which caused damage to the foldable display from the inside.

Samsung will likely find a way to deal with the self-inflicted issues, because they involved the removal of a protective layer on the foldable screen. Expect them to make it painfully clear to Fold owners in the future that this layer should not be removed.

For the single device that failed because the user simply opened and closed it, we may never know the reason for failure there.

As for the devices who found substances within because of gaps in the Fold’s hinge, we’ll have to wait and see what Samsung did to address this. iFixit’s (since-removed) teardown sure made it sound like this indeed a major flaw in the phone’s design. How was Samsung able to address design flaws within a matter of weeks that leaves them comfortable in selling a $2,000 phone to consumers? I’m dying to know.

// Korea Herald