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Will foldables always be so fragile?
Bob (and others) have asked:
I’ve owned three Galaxy Z Folds, and each one cracked down the middle. I understand this is a known issue, but will it ever be fixed?
Thanks
It’s frustrating to read: foldable phones tend to break more frequently and often for seemingly no reason. Will this issue ever improve?
The short answer is that devices with super-thin glass that can fold will always be more fragile than those with regular glass. Unfortunately, there’s no magic fix. However, improvements in durability are expected over the years, though perhaps not for the reasons you might think.
The core issue is the thin glass. For glass to bend repeatedly without breaking, it must be thinner than a human hair and elaborately treated with specialized coatings. While this is remarkable, it inherently makes the glass extremely fragile.
Creating bendable glass involves much more than just the glass itself. While advancements are expected to lead to sturdier Ultra-Thin-Glass in the future, a significant factor in mitigating the issue lies in the phone’s design.
Thin glass has low tensile strength—any imperfection, such as a scratch or nick, can eventually lead to catastrophic failure. A folding phone with an imperfection will break at the crease each time.
The key to minimizing damage to the screen is to ensure it remains protected. This is why foldable phones have a plastic coating and a permanent plastic screen protector. Moreover, they are designed not to fold completely in half, preventing the two sides from touching. Ultimately, the hinge plays a crucial role in the overall design.
Integrating plastic (which has significantly improved in quality over the past few years) provides essential protection. If a small piece of dirt enters the area near the screen, it should only scratch the plastic layer and leave the glass intact.
This design also prevents the two sides from making contact when closed. The phone folds slightly less than 180 degrees, featuring a small lip around the body’s edge for added protection against scratches. Remember, only gentle pressure from your finger should touch the folding screen, as a fingernail or any hard object might dent the glass through its fragile coatings.
The most critical and potentially challenging design aspect remains the hinge. Consider how detrimental even a slight side-to-side wiggle in the hinge could be to the edge of such delicate glass. It could lead to a tear along the edge, ultimately ruining your display.
Conversely, the hinge must also be user-friendly; it should fold easily without much effort while remaining rigid when open. Any minor movement could lead to fractures that ruin your device.
Much of the hard work in this realm seems to go unrecognized, except by those deeply involved in the process. The hinge’s design is fundamentally why we can have foldable phones today. As these mechanisms improve, incidents of cracked screens should decrease—remember the initial Galaxy Z Fold and the many broken ones showcased on social media?
Foldable devices might never be rugged, MIL-SPEC level gadgets, and we likely wouldn’t favor a bulky, 20-ounce phone anyway. However, they are steadily improving and will continue enhancing as engineering advances further to ensure everything functions as intended.