I love folding phones. Seriously. I love mine so much that I ditched my laptop entirely. But the sad truth is that the inner screen, as durable as it is, can’t last as long as the outer one. It will, eventually, fail—it’s only a matter of time.
Does that mean I regret my purchase? Hardly. I fully expect this screen to last longer than I intend to use the phone. But there are things to be aware of if you want to make sure the odds are ever in your favor.
Foldable screens are more vulnerable to scratches
Modern phones come with screens so durable, they’re named after animals. Gorilla Glass is able to handle a surprising amount of abuse before scratches show. Yes, you still want a screen protector to keep the screen pristine for years, but it’s surprising how well they hold up for devices we poke at constantly and then shove in our pockets with lint, earbud cases, and who knows what else.
Foldable phone screens are not named after animals. These are just fragile screens that aren’t made of glass at all. Instead, they’re made of a thin plastic that is malleable enough to fold. This plastic is very easy to scratch if it has to face a fingernail or key head-on. This is true whether you prefer a book-style foldable like me or like the smaller form-factor of a flip foldable instead.
These screens have a limited number of folds
This folding screen gets stretched out every time the phone is unfolded, putting the screen under strain. The tension is then reduced when the phone is folded. This is a screen that spends most of its time in either a state of tension or relaxation, but there’s movement in between all throughout the day. I personally rarely use the cover screen and unfold my phone almost every time I pick it up. That screen goes through a lot.
Folding phone manufacturers ship each phone with an expected number of folds. Fortunately, these numbers tend to be in the hundreds of thousands. Even someone opening their phone all throughout the day can still expect well over half a decade of usage before they’ve reached the promised 500,000 folds. That said, relatively few folding phones have been around long enough to test out the accuracy of those claims, and the older models that are over five years old were not nearly as durable as the ones being sold today.
Make sure to keep your phone closed when it’s not in use
Now for the positive news. My inner screen is in better condition than my outer one. That’s because when my phone isn’t in use, I keep it closed. The inner screen is constantly protected and never runs the risk of rubbing up against something in my pocket. When I drop the phone, it’s the exterior of the device that takes the hit.
Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek
My experience does not appear to be outside the norm. As long as you make sure to close your phone when you aren’t actively using it, chances are, your screen will be just fine.
Avoid sandy and gritty environments
The biggest threat to your folding phone’s inner display isn’t the big things. I’ve dropped my Galaxy Z Fold devices more often than my previous phones (since I use them more), and they’ve come away from these drops looking better off than those older phones did. My Galaxy Z Fold 6 still looks almost new after a year of heavy usage.
The biggest dangers are from small particles that are hard to guard against. This is not the best type of phone to take to the beach or use if you work in a gritty environment. You don’t want to close your phone on a small clump of sand or, worse, have the particles unknowingly slip inside the hinge.
Sign up for a protection plan or phone insurance
Accidents happen. Even if you don’t drop your phone and never get within 100 miles of the nearest beach, your screen can still fail. I’ve seen anecdotal stories of screens with dead pixels or dark streaks across the hinge. You can see devices with this sort of damage on eBay. Like any mass manufactured product, some have defects. It happens, even if it doesn’t happen to most.
This is why I personally have signed up for a phone protection plan for the first time in my life. If my screen goes out, I want the peace of mind of being able to take it to the nearest repair shop for a quick and simple repair.
As I said in the beginning, I love folding phones. Foldable screens have become one of my favorite tech innovations. Wherever I go, I now have a digital notebook and Kindle-sized eBook reader in my pocket. If I do end up needing to pay for a screen replacement in a few years, that’s a small sacrifice for the amount of joy I’ve derived from this phone that I would not from a traditional slab.
- Brand
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Samsung
- RAM
-
12GB
- Storage
-
256GB
- Battery
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4,400mAh
Samsung’s thinnest and lightest Fold yet feels like a regular phone when closed and a powerful multitasking machine when open. With a brighter 8-inch display and on-device Galaxy AI, it’s ready for work, play, and everything in between.