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Comment by wpasc | Hacker News Reader

Even if the Fold has some problems, I commend them for being bold with their design and ambitions. It may be safer to wait for the next generation of that phone, but many recent developments in the hardware space have been lacking in ambition. Kudos to Samsung

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> Even if the Fold has some problems

The absolutely most important aspect of this $2000 device is failing within days. The only way this could be worse is if they started exploding, too.

I'm exciting for neat ambitious devices also, but they have to be more than paper weights. If these are all failing so soon, either there was no QA whatsoever, or some QA manager within Samsung was ignored...

> The only way this could be worse is if they started exploding, too.

Give it a few months.

This is like a 1980s plastic lunch box. The moulded hinge always snapped in half after about 3 months regardless of what you did. Cue optimus prime letting your lunch out all over the floor.

I think they are failing because it was a fucking stupid idea.

Edit: If anything I want NO mechanical components on any handheld device I own because in the last 40 years of my life everything has broken mechanically eventually. Home buttons, volume controls, connectors, battery holders everything.

It's a valid point, if a bit grumpy: The big deal about smartphones is that in various different ways, they were able to replace the mechanical with the electrical, and replace physical design with software-based design. (Don't like where that button is? Tweak the code. Type of thing.) Adding a hinge is in some ways a step backward. I also agree with your grandparent comment though, that it's a bold idea and a neat gimmick. (EDIT: ...if it worked!)

Folding screens can certainly enabled more software based design. Its obviously a really exciting new form factor considering how prominent folding screens have been in sci fi. We all really want to have Westworld level tech. Even though we are still a ways away, its awesome to know that its becoming possible.

Westworld-level tech? Technology at a level of... going cartoonishly haywire and wantonly murdering all humans? I’m not sure I follow your point.

I'm talking about their folding screen they use.

> "Edit: If anything I want NO mechanical components on any handheld device I own because in the last 40 years of my life everything has broken mechanically eventually."

your anecdote seems to suffer from cognitive bias. screens are non-mechanical (except in this galaxy fold) and yet they're still the most broken component in a phone.

We can pick conceptual holes in an argument until the universe implodes but lets consider that in normal use you won't break your phone screen. Until Samsung came out with this, which is the problem.

Well... Followed by buttons and charging ports. Y'know, the remaining mechanical parts. Perhaps the distinction is wearing out vs sudden damage.

A rock was kicked up on the interstate the other day and hit my windshield. It now has a delightful spider web pattern, but everything else about the car still operates perfectly.

Breaking the glass (a superficial and expected eventuality) is very different than the screen no longer functioning or responding to input (a mechanical failure).

> Edit: If anything I want NO mechanical components on any handheld device I own because in the last 40 years of my life everything has broken mechanically eventually. Home buttons, volume controls, connectors, battery holders everything.

Yes, but how have the electronic components fared over that time? I've definitely had devices where the mechanical components failed, but never a reasonable-quality device where the mechanical components failed first. For example, compare the times you've tried to input something on a dodgy public touchscreen versus the times you've tried to input something on a public physical keypad—I'll bet there're way more failures on the first than on the second; certainly that's been my experience.

> For example, compare the times you've tried to input something on a dodgy public touchscreen versus the times you've tried to input something on a public physical keypad—I'll bet there're way more failures on the first than on the second; certainly that's been my experience.

Well, anything with glass is prone to vandalism. A metal keyboard is hard to vandalize, a touchscreen needs only a piece of random rock or other debris to shatter.

Not even clear he's talking about vandalized glass. Sounds like maybe he's referring to those squishy resistive-touch displays found in ATMs and POS terminals and other kiosk-type applications, and early consumer devices. Did those ever work well, even when new?

How much of that is even hardware?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve used some big impressive digital map kind of thing at a mall or airport only to find it completely frozen (software), insanely laggy (potentially both, but likely software if a RPi could run it), and/or infuriating to use because I have to touch very hard exactly on the center of the icon, taking into account what I think the angle of the display is so that I’m hitting it exactly where the screen thinks it is, not where I see it through a layer of glass as being (most definitely software).

All of those complaints have applied to one degree or another to stupid tableside ordering apps that are running on an iPad or my own phone too, so I don’t think the hardware was ever to blame.

Yeah, this seems like a design mistake. People stick their phones in their pockets and bags. Over time a lot of dirt and dust is going to get under that top film. If peeling/removing that film causes the screen to die, I assume garbage gettng under it won’t be good either.

This comment reads like an application for a Samsung PR position.

The review period has lasted nearly four days and despite the boldness in design and ambition, the folding phone situation has developed not necessarily to Samsung's advantage.

Let's be honest, this isn't "some problems", this is easily one of the two worst smartphone launches of all time, the other one being a phone that fucking exploded.

I am sure all of those people with broken phones are appreciative of how "bold" Samsung has been in releasing this phone early.

Personally I prefer the Apple approach with new products e.g. iPhone, iPad, Watch which is to have largely perfected the hardware before shipping but release it with MVP software which they aggressively improve.

You mean like that time the iPhone lost a significant amount of signal when you held it to make a call? Or how the vast majority of Apple computers struggled with heat related issues until the past 5ish years?

Don't forget the worst heat issue the MBP dealt with[1]. If you can't even hit your base clock at idle, someone really didn't bother with QA.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx8J125s4cg

That was a software issue which they patched soon after. Dave Lee did re-review the unit after the patch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTguywiC9aw

I had the iPhone 4. The antenna was a non issue.

Maybe for you, but enough people experienced it for a class action settlement:

http://www.iphone4settlement.com/

Enough class-action lawyers became aware of it.

Dnt frget th Mac kyboar.

The whole AntennaGate was overblown. Apple continued selling the same unmodified GSM iPhone for four years with little controversy after the first four to six months.

Except for the MacBook Pro version whose logic board failed, and the iBooks who plastic cases cracked and peeled.

About half of Apple products have serious hardware design flaws.

Oddly, the A1226 next to me has been my daily driver for 3-4 years, and prior to that used since it's inception as a daily driver for someone else.

It's probably one of the few remaining ones that just keep humming along.

"Just some percentage" "a small number" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kifBYFXU7X0

Your single datapoint is a great proof of reliability :)

Imagine just how incredibly reliable Samsungs are considering the fact I still have a single running S1!

How is it "being bold" to release a product that costs $2000 and that has a high failure rate? Yes I realize the same can be said about the MacBook keyboards and I wouldn't disagree.

Same way as how removing feature is being bold and coragous. Phone makers are just playing a game of how utterly stupid they can be and still market it as something amazing.

You’re comparing removing a headphone jack to screen failures?

Both were failures.

What? It is extremely bold. The boldest thing I can imagine a company doing actually...

It may be "bold", but is it a design that makes any sense beyond a short-lived sales-boosting novelty?

If it worked I would say yes. Uses of having a small device with a large screen are not that hard to imagine.

Of course. The problem with Samsung is that they don't seem to care about proper execution, they care about being able to print fantastic features on the abck of the box, regardless of how well they actually work.

They seem to innovate faster then Apple like a recent example being Wireless PowerShare (charge one phone with another).

It's reported Apple will be adding that into the iPhone 11; wirelessly charge your watch or another phone with a charged or charging iPhone.

Many of the most interesting Apple innovations for me are behind the scenes e.g. Marzipan, Bitcode, Secure Enclave, A-series CPU.

And Samsung isn't innovating faster they are releasing faster. Big difference.

Yeah that is true as Apples release schedule stays the same every year while Samsung’s release schedule personally to me is all over the place.

I hope Apple adds that Wireless PowerShare feature as the ability to use my iPhone as a charging mat to charge other devices would be handy!

This has been done by other Android manufacturers before Samsung as well but I think it boils down to launch schedules. Apple doesn't launch new iPhones until September so, even if innovative functions are planned, they always appear to be added later than the rest of -or in response to- competitors.

That, and other manufacturers are individually and collectively throwing more features at the wall than Apple ever would.

Whether they’re well thought out and will be supported on the next generation appears to be beside the point: they attract attention and serve as a differentiator.

Apple has neither the desire nor the luxury of throwing half-baked ideas into their phones.

Apple’s innovation is and always has been on the manufacturing side. The fact that they can make such well designed devices AND manufacture millions of them that meet such precise tolerances and high quality is what really sets them apart. Apple has been doing this for over a decade, while other manufacturers have only (possibly) caught up recently, if at all.

I’m sure someone will chime in about the butterfly keyboard or something else, but the number of those issues is small compared to all the devices they create.

I also commend them, but if these problems are widespread, Samsung is going to have issues selling this product, regardless of how "commendable" it may be.

There is also a risk that they will endanger the future of the entire "foldables" market by releasing a product which should still be in the prototype stage.

2 phones with hinge and an extra screen?

Had this happened to Apple, there would be an uproar.

Samsung’s $2000 phone breaks in two days? Kudos to them for being bold and brave.

Smh.

Not sure why you are being downvoted, it is true.

There is no "innovation" whatsoever if the technology doesn't work. Apple and other makers have been playing with the technology and understood the risks of putting this device out there. Samsung ignored these risks for the sake of press, and now the customer pays the price.

To be fair: anyone buying a smartphone with literally never-seen-before technology for $2000 knows what they're up to.

Same with buying a Tesla back when they started. You invest in these kind of things only with the f..k-you money and for fun purposes, not with the money you need to survive or as the car you need to get to work.

That phone is not a product. It’s a prototype at best.

Once again, imagine Apple releasing this.

That's because Apple would have spent the last 2 years saying that no one would ever need that feature, then pretend to invent it saying it was the most amazing thing ever, then remove some functionality that everyone loved to make room for it while still staying thinner than anyone cared...

When it quit working after 2 days they'd tell you you shouldn't have held it that way.

Which is fine because the device I bought would still work.

Unless it has a keyboard or you hold it wrong.

“You hold it wrong”. Affected less than 1% of the users. Called “Antennagate”. Still remembered 10 years later.

Samsung: phone breaks two days after use. Kudos to them, bravo.

See?

IIRC Samsung also had its own antennagate, nobody batted an eye.

This is Apple’s bread and butter: they let competitors go to market too early, and then they come in when the tech is stable enough for a polished experience

I don't think that's true. If Apple released some samples to reviewers, and they had problems, two things would have happened:

- Apple would have NDA'd the problems out.

- People would excuse the pre-production state of these devices.

Mostly we don't care because it's not something people are seriously considering buying. It's a flashy thing that's crazy overpriced. It's like reading about Bugatti reliability problems. Boo hoo.

>Imagine if $OpposingTeam did this! There would be an uproar!

So tired of this in both politics and tech. Yes. There is always uproar from the haters. Both sides.

Anyway, Genesis does what Nintendon't.

maybe there is not need for such ambition. Seems like cell phone companies are developing for the sake of development because they're dependent on the release cycle to make money.

This is the comment of the fucking century.

If this was Apple, I wonder what your comment would be?

Flip phones are "innovative" now? They've been around for ages. The one aspect of Samsung's design that's supposedly innovative is making a single display that extends across the hinge - that's also the part of their design that doesn't actually work.

Support for innovation. Not supporting that it got stolen before launch...

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/30/tech/samsung-china-tech-t...

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