One of the main problems with Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is that it doesn’t really fold

“Take a look at the Galaxy Fold’s 68 official images on Samsung’s press site, and see if you can work out what’s missing. Or watch the promotional clip and tell me what you find odd about it,” Aaron Souppouris writes for Engadget. “No, I’m not talking about how weird that tiny outside screen is. Instead, it’s the thing Samsung went to painstaking lengths to avoid talking about at is ‘Unpacked’ keynote… the fold gap.”
Below “is the Galaxy Fold… folded. Just look at the outline of the device. The image comes from the reveal video, which is the single piece of media that shows this angle. (Even then, it’s only for two seconds.) In it, you can see a clear, and frankly glaring, gap between the two parts of the phone where it hinges. The gap appears to be a hair wider than the two “phone” parts are thick — perhaps it’s about 10mm — which might not sound a lot, but it makes the Fold an even stranger device than it first appears,” Souppouris writes. “For years people joked about every new phone just being ‘a black rectangle.’ Here, Samsung has made a black triangle. Okay, a triangular prism. And those sides aren’t very black. The point is: This thing doesn’t fold flat… [It is] more ‘bendable’ than ‘foldable.'”
Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is a whopping 17mm thick at its hinge
 
“A $2,000 phone with a huge gap in the middle doesn’t sound like the best idea, and it’s certainly not attractive, but my issue is more with the ergonomics. Eyeballing it, it seems like the two phone parts sit at around an 85-degree angle from the hinge. That means the screen side is going to sit around 10 degrees away from ‘flat’ when laid down on a surface,” Souppouris writes. “If you want a phone that opens similarly to the Fold, but without that gap, there are a couple of solutions. Samsung’s designers could implement a deeper hinge that can house the bend without creasing it; until I saw the gap, that’s what I thought they had done. Or, they could wait for displays to advance to the point where they can get something very close to a flat fold. In reality, future devices will probably utilize a mix of both of those to produce the device Samsung, with some expertly curated demos, basically pretended it had built yesterday.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Samsung “Galaxy Bend” just doesn’t have the same cachet. You’ll not fleece the sheep starting at $1980 with that!
We saw through Samsung’s marketing tricks and remarked on the unfortunate brick-like nature of the product immediately:
Now, just how thick is that thing when closed? We’ll tell you what Samsung doesn’t want to talk about: 14 mm – 17 mm thick on the side with the hinge! For comparison, an iPhone XS is just 7.7 mm thin. Even the Motorola RAZR V3 circa 2004 was just 13.9 mm when closed.
The South Korean dishwasher maker is peddling a brick! Hey, is that a Galaxy Fold in your pocket or are you just happy to see us? — MacDailyNews, February 20, 2019
We’ll see a mess of weird attempts before Apple shows how it’s to be done, as usual. — MacDailyNews, January 23, 2019
As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019
We’ll happily wait for the day when foldable displays can be manufactured in the massive quantities required for a real iPhone, thanks.
Other problems, besides the price, of course, are that massive, off-center notch, a design horror show and its privacy-trampling, user tracking, fragmented-all-to-hell nightmare of an OS with a Samsung skin slapped atop it all. If it’s not an iPhone, it’s a toxic hellstew — regardless of which South Korean or Chinese dishwasher maker or American online advertiser masquerading as a search engine is peddling it.
SEE ALSO:
Most analysts expect Apple to wait until 2020 to offer a foldable iPhone – February 21, 2019
Samsung announces foldable 4.6- to 7.3-inch ‘Galaxy Fold’ phone with giant off-center notch, starts at $1,980 – February 20, 2019
Xiaomi reveals dual-folding smartphone prototype (with video) – January 23, 2019
Samsung’s foldable Galaxy phone will cost ‘twice the price of a premium phone’ – January 18, 2019
Lenovo planning to resurrect Razr as a foldable $1,500 cellphone – January 17, 2019
Corning’s bendable Gorilla Glass glass could shape the foldable phones of the future – December 6, 2018
Can foldable phones help Samsung copy Apple? – November 7, 2018
Apple granted a second patent for a folding iPhone with flexible hinge – October 16, 2018
Apple gets 49 new U.S. patents including a foldable iPhone and an iPhone design invented by Steve Jobs – September 4, 2018
BoA Merrill Lynch: Apple is prepping a ‘foldable’ iPhone; U.S. and China trade tensions not an issue for Apple – March 23, 2018
Apple seeks patent for a foldable iPhone – November 28, 2017
Apple teams up with LG Display for foldable iPhone due to concerns over tech leaks to Samsung – October 11, 2017
Apple, LG Display discuss OLED display deal for 2019 – September 7, 2017
LG Display to supply OLED panels to Apple – July 31, 2017
Apple to invest $2.70 billion in LG Display’s OLED production – July 28, 2017
Apple and LG Display plan to derail Samsung’s OLED expansion plans – July 25, 2017
LG Display to invest $3.56 billion in flexible OLED plant – May 30, 2017
Apple patent details foldable iPhone – January 26, 2017
Apple granted U.S. patent for bendable or foldable iPhone using advanced carbon nanotube structures – November 1, 2016
Apple is granted another patent for new flexible handset design – November 22, 2016