Samsung’s Galaxy Fold has had an eventful few weeks. And now, it appears that after retrieving review units from the media, that now Samsung is asking teardowns to be taken down as well.
iFixit was asked by Samsung to take down its teardown of the Galaxy Fold. While Samsung did not directly supply iFixit with a Galaxy Fold, it did get one from a retailer that works with Samsung. So iFixit decided to play nicely with Samsung and has since taken down their teardown of the first foldable smartphone. iFixit is taking down this tear down until it can purchase a retail unit later this year, and tear that one down.
There’s a couple of reasons why Samsung might want iFixit to take down this teardown. Which includes the fact that it shows, what could be, the reason that the phone is having issues right now. And it could also be showing things that will be fixed before the Galaxy Fold actually goes on sale later this year – right now it is set to launch in June.
The Galaxy Fold has had a pretty rough few weeks. After being sent to a handful of reviewers, everything seemed to be really great. Reviewers were loving the Galaxy Fold, the first foldable smartphone on the market. But then, a couple days later, a big group of Galaxy Fold smartphones started to break. Seemingly all at the same time. It also appeared that the devices were breaking in different ways. Some were taking off the protective plastic that was on the display, resulting in the screen going completely black. While others were getting dust and other debris under the screen, which isn’t a great thing, especially this quickly after getting the phone.
After these issues came out into the public, Samsung decided to delay the launch of the phone – which was supposed to launch today. Samsung is going to be looking into how to fix the device so that it doesn’t break so easily. Right now, Samsung has not given a solid date for the Galaxy Fold to launch again, but some carriers are stating that it will be available in June. Delaying the launch by about two months.
When these issues started to come out, it looked like Samsung had another Galaxy Note7 fiasco on its hands. Though, this is arguably not on the same level as the Galaxy Note7 which was actually harming its users by blowing up and/or catching on fire. Luckily, Samsung was able to jump on this quickly, before it actually started going out to customers. Imagine paying over $2,000 for a new phone, only to have it break within the first couple of days. Samsung would have been dealing with some very angry customers. So this was a good thing that Samsung caught this early.
The teardown from iFixit has been taken down for now. But it likely will be back in a few months once the Galaxy Fold is ready to go on sale, officially. But of course, there is a cache of the teardown still available, thanks to Google.