Barely tested, already broken. Launched today in the United States, the Google Pixel Fold, the first folding smartphone from the American giant, is already getting bad press. But beyond the very mixed reviews of certain specialized sites, the device would mainly suffer from major durability problems.
This is reported at the start of the week by Ron Amadeo, journalist for the specialized media Ars Technica. The person concerned reports that the screen of his loan copy simply failed after only four days of testing, despite light use of the device, he explains.
A problematic folding flat?
In this case, the problem would be twofold and would have to do with one of Google’s main marketing arguments: the flat folding of the device. Ron Amadeo reports that his Pixel Fold started by displaying 10 dead pixels at the bottom of the screen, before the panel was taken out of service as a whole. According to the journalist, the left side of the screen also no longer responded to touch controls and a white gradient had ended up extending over most of the slab.
According to him, the problem comes first from a thin band that can be observed around the edge of the screen. The latter is not protected even though it is a constituent of the flexible OLED panel on which the Pixel Fold is based. This thin strip therefore remains bare on this first version of the device, since it is not covered by a protective film or an ultra-thin flexible glass plate. It is then exposed to dust and other small daily grime that can damage it. In the Ron Amadeo case, an external element seems to have perforated the slab in this fragile zone.
A difficult launch…
This design flaw is all the more troublesome as it couples to the hinge system allowing the Pixel Fold to be folded with its two halves lying completely flat on top of each other. It is then enough that a sufficiently hard element slips into the unprotected band of the screen so that it breaks the slab once the device is folded. Radical, and terrifying on a device sold for nearly 1,800 euros.
As it stands, the Pixel Fold also suffers the wrath of The Verge. In its complete test published on June 26, the American media gives a score of only 6/10 to the new flagship of Google, evoking in particular a “ questionable sustainability “, limited functionality in multitasking, but also too much weight and a prohibitive price.
Sources: Wccftech / The Verge
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