The simplest test turned out to be the most revealing. iFixit specialists didn't drop the Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 from a height or submerge it in water — they simply poured fine dust into the folding mechanism. Result: the hinge began to creak, and the smartphone stopped opening properly.
This is the practical pitfall. The Galaxy Fold 8 has IP48 protection, and on paper this looks solid. But the "4" in this rating means protection only from particles 1 mm in size — that is, from small pebbles or large debris. Ordinary street dust and beach sand are significantly smaller than this threshold and freely penetrate where they shouldn't.
The screen crease — not cosmetics, but compromise
The second systemic flaw concerns the display. Samsung applied titanium reinforcement in the new design, but the screen crease itself remained — and according to iFixit's observations, it may become even more noticeable over time. This is not a manufacturing defect, but a physical limitation of flexible glass and plastic technology that no manufacturer has yet overcome.
Repairing such a phone is also difficult: to access internal components, you must first remove the display itself — the most expensive and most vulnerable part. Each such operation increases the risk of permanently damaging the screen during routine repairs, such as battery replacement.
What this means for a foldable iPhone
iFixit concluded its teardown with a rating of 4 out of 10 for repairability — a low score even compared to other foldable models. But the main conclusion concerns not Samsung specifically: if Apple takes a similar form factor approach for its first foldable iPhone, the company will have to solve the same physical challenges — hinge sealing against fine particles and minimizing the crease without sacrificing screen flexibility.
In other words, the question is not whether Apple will make a foldable iPhone without these flaws, but how successfully the company can hide them or compensate with price or warranty service.
For the buyer, this is a practical signal: a foldable smartphone is a device that should be protected from beach sand and construction dust much more carefully than from rain. And if Apple announces its own foldable with promises of a "solved" crease problem, it's worth checking whether this is a real technological breakthrough or a marketing formula that won't pass the same dust test.
