Our favourite phone destroyer, JerryRigEverything, got his hands on the first foldable phone you can actually buy — the Royole Flexpie. And… you guessed it. He managed to destroy it by running a variety of ‘tests’ on it. Tests which include the ‘bend test’.
Good ol’ Jerry is known for bending devices ye olde way — with brute force. This time around, actually having the opportunity to break a foldable phone, he opted to see whether the Royole could bend just as well the other way around. In theory, a ‘flexible display’ should be able to handle bending in a variety of directions. And the Flexpie handled Jerry’s strenuous tests pretty… well. Check out the full video below.
Squishy screens
Before the fold test, Jerry goes through his usual gamut of other tests. It’s clear from the first tests that this is not a glass display. Glass cannot bend — if you weren’t sure — which means that foldable displays are made of plastic. Jerry easily created grooves on the Flexpie’s soft display using his scratching tools.
As he points out, these fragile displays could be worrying, especially considering the Royole’s display folds outwards and is always vulnerable to outside forces. Samsung might be on to something with its Galaxy Fold folding inwards.
We don’t have any concerns about the phone folding the way it’s supposed to bend. But when Jerry tries to bend the phone in the opposite direction, the Flexpie puts up a good fight. When it does eventually crack, however, it’s the hinge that fails rather than the display. Which means the display does what it’s supposed to: last.
We’re just glad someone has the guts (and funds) to destroy devices that cost more than our cars. Hopefully, Jerry gets his hands on the Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X once they’re available. We would like to see those tests. Wait,’tests’.