Samsung loves to show what sort of punishment its smartphones can take. Part of this stems from the launch of the original Galaxy Fold, where the company received some criticism about how fragile the handset was. But, now, Samsung’s folding smartphones are considerably more durable — so the brand is just showing off at this point.
Samsung shows its stuff
If you’re dropping nearly R40k on a folding smartphone (or a much more reasonable R22,000 for a different folding smartphone), then you want to know that it’s built to last. As you’ll see from Stuff‘s review of the Galaxy Fold 3, the company’s folding hardware isn’t quite as durable as a traditional smartphone but it’s far better than it used to be.
The behind-the-scenes video (above) of what Samsung’s folding smartphones go through before being released out into the world explains why. The handsets are cooked, frozen, and blasted with humidity before they’re dunked into a tank and drowned several times. And then, they have to undergo the folding robots, which Samsung says ensures that the Fold 3 and Flip 3 have the ability “…to outlast 200,000 folds—or around five years of use if folded and unfolded 100 times a day.”
The only really mysterious part of this is: Why now? Samsung’s newest folding smartphones have been on the market for some time — either this video release is intended to reignite interest, or, as The Verge points out, it might be the company running ahead of reported issues on Reddit involving cracks being found in Galaxy Z Flip 3 screens.