Samsung has invented the phone of the future. The future just broke

First victim of triple folding – Galaxy Z TriFold vs. physics

Samsung has done what no one has dared to mass market before: a triple folding smartphone. It sounds like science fiction, it looks like a tablet from the future… and it just scored its first spectacular descent from that future to the present.

In South Korea, the first public report of screen damage on the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold has emerged. The phone did not fall down. It was not flooded. It wasn’t catapulted. It was simply… used. And that was enough.

Samsung: premium crack for 9 thousand

A user described the issue on Samsung’s official forum. Less than a month after purchase, he noticed a thin vertical line exactly where the bend was, as well as a dead pixel that effectively separates the screen into a “light” and “dark” side of life.

Coincidence? A manufacturing defect? Or maybe the screen just said “enough” in a place where it has to bend… twice. And this is where it gets awkward, because the TriFold is no ordinary phone. It’s Samsung’s technological showcase, an ultra-premium toy, sort of:

“Look at what we know how to do – and now pay almost 9 thousand zlotys for it.”

When unfolded, the TriFold turns into an approximately 10-inch tablet. It’s less than 4.2 mm thick, which is about the thickness of a piece of ego marketing paper. The problem is that the thinner the screen and the more hinges, the closer to the limit of material strength.

YouTube has already done its job. Bending tests show that the design doesn’t like even moderate pressure. Pixels fade, the screen cracks, and physics takes its toll. One hinge on the Fold was a challenge. Two hinges? It’s already a lottery.

Samsung in full swing: dust, sand and “something crunched”

Adding to the list of problems is a classic of the genre: dust and fines. All it takes is for something to get into the hinge area, and the phone starts making sounds you don’t want to hear from a device on several minimum wages. Samsung, of course, assures that everything is “normal,” but the more complicated the mechanics, the more things can go wrong. And here’s where it can go wrong-expensive.

The manufacturer claims 200,000 folds and unfolds, which is supposed to correspond to about 5 years of use. It’s just that in the lab, no one sits on the phone and no one bends it in their pocket. The reality is more brutal. And the most brutal is… the cost of repairs.

Leaks from the Asian market suggest that the outer screen – still swallowable, while the inner, triple-folding panel – a financial knockout. Replacement of the main screen is more than 4 thousand zlotys, with the price of the phone oscillating around 8800 zlotys. That is: one major problem is half a new phone.

TriFold: show of force or beta test on customers?

And now the most interesting thing: Samsung has never pretended that TriFold is a mass product. It’s a pilot project, a demonstration of capabilities, a testing ground. The stores reportedly receive 15-30 units per living room. In all of Korea – just a few hundred units. Nevertheless, they sell out in minutes. Because geeks love novelties. Even the ones that can… break. But the smaller the batch, the more each failure hurts in terms of image. And the first cracked screen on a phone that was supposed to “rewrite the future” is not a PR gift.

Samsung has pushed the limit again. The problem is that the limit has moved faster than the strength of the screen.