A while back, I had written about Samsung's unveiling of its first foldable phone called the Samsung Galaxy Fold which was met with a lot of hype and fanfare as the phone is one of the first foldable phones in the market.

The whole smartphone industry is due for a refresh as the current form factors we have are getting stale and there is only so much that companies can do, design wise, to lure in new customers and to make the existing ones upgrade regularly.

As such, the smartphone market has reached a saturation point and big tech companies have been pouring billions in research and development for the next decade of smartphone development, offering new designs and ways of accessing information from a device that one can't do without.

Foldable phones appear to be the new direction we'll be headed. Samsung and others have already unveiled theirs and Apple is rumoured to be working on one too. But the very nature of the phone makes it extremely difficult to be made with the same reliability that has become the norm and it might take years before companies nail it down.

A Half Baked Product?

Recently, Samsung sent review units of the Galaxy Fold to tech reviewers but instead of getting good press and more hype for the phone, it had a very unfortunate situation to take control of.

Most of the review units came out to be defective and became simply unusable. Most of the issues were regarding the screen itself, which is not surprising as its the first time we're seeing the foldable phone being tested out in the wild.

Reviewers noticed small bulge appearing on the display, and a crease where the phone folds in half. The crease was to be expected but Samsung sure didn't show it while unveiling the phone and on the marketing materials.

Some of the reviewers removed the protective layer on the screen that the phone came with (as is regular practise with any new phone) and the phones almost immediately stopped working. There was no indication anywhere that they were not supposed to do so. After the reports about this surfaced, Samsung said that they will do a better job of communicating that the layer is not supposed to be peeled.

There were also flickering issues which became so intense that the phones became slowly unusable. For now, Samsung has recalled all the review units, postponed the public launch and has said that the phone needs more improvement.

It's baffling why these problems were not discovered and dealth with during the company's internal testing and if the phone was launched knowing that these problems might arise. It will be interesting to see how Samsung deals with the issues going forward.