Samsung Halts Galaxy Fold Media Events In China

Samsung Electronics has taken the decision to postpone a couple of media events in China for its Galaxy Fold smartphone-tablet hybrid.

The decision comes after it emerged last week that a number of tech reviewers had encountered problems with innovative device.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is widely regarded as an impressive feat of hardware engineering, but a number of reviewers encountered problems with its centrepiece feature, namely its folding screen.

Postponed events

And now just days later, Reuters quoted a company official as saying that Samsung has postponed media events for its Galaxy Fold planned for this week in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The official reportedly did not elaborate on the reasons or rescheduling.

The Samsung official did apparently said the firm was thoroughly investigating the damage reports as previously announced, and declined to comment on whether there would be any change to the US release date, set for 26 April.

The Galaxy Fold is set to go on sale in Europe and South Korea in May, but there is no official launch date yet set for China.

The Galaxy Fold is being touted as a next generation device when it was launched in February.

The $1,980 device features a 4.6-inch phone display that opens out to a single large 7.3-inch screen when the device is unfolded, with no fold lines visible.

Samsung beat its rival Huawei to market, after the Chinese giant launched its folding phone called the Mate X, just a week later.

Durable screen?

But now question marks have been raised about the durability of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, after a number of tech reviewers found issues with it.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman tweeted last week, “the screen on my Galaxy Fold review unit is completely broken and unusable just two days in. Hard to know if this is widespread or not.”

The Verge’s Executive Editor Dieter Bohn tweeted that his review Fold “had that weird bump under the screen at the hinge. Whatever it was eventually broke the screen.”

CNBC’s tech editor Steve Kovach also tweeted about a problem with the display of the Galaxy Fold.

Some reports indicated that some of the reviewers had removed a plastic layer on the screen that was not meant to be removed and the phone malfunctioned afterwards.

However both the Verge and CNBC insisted they did not remove the special film over the screen.

There has also been analyst speculation that Samsung’s in-folding design is likely to be less durable than Huawei’s out-folding approach.

Samsung will be hoping that it does not have another troublesome handset to deal with. In 2016 the Galaxy Note 7 was recalled after some of those smartphones caught fire.

Samsung’s investigation into what caused the catastrophic Galaxy Note 7 safety failures later found a battery fault was chiefly responsible.

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