Samsung Electronics CEO admits he launched the Galaxy Fold too early
Samsung Electronics' CEO, D.J. Koh, has claimed responsibility for the premature launch of the Galaxy Fold, which is still awaiting a new release date.
"It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready," Koh told The Independent and other press outlets at a meeting in Seoul. "I do admit I missed something on the foldable phone, but we are in the process of recovery."
Over 2,000 Folds are now undergoing testing, he explained. "We defined all the issues. Some issues we didn't even think about, but thanks to our reviewers, mass volume testing is ongoing," he said.
The Galaxy Fold is the first foldable smartphone from a major vendor. It was originally slated to ship April 26, but early reviewers ran into problems with broken screens, usually along the hinge line. Samsung averted disaster by delaying launch yet has gone months without a significant update.
The issue has even prompted Huawei to delay its foldable Mate X.
Apple has been exploring the concept of its own foldable devices for years, but there's no sign of them shipping anytime soon. 2019 iPhones are expected to stick with flat OLED and LCD panels.
"It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready," Koh told The Independent and other press outlets at a meeting in Seoul. "I do admit I missed something on the foldable phone, but we are in the process of recovery."
Over 2,000 Folds are now undergoing testing, he explained. "We defined all the issues. Some issues we didn't even think about, but thanks to our reviewers, mass volume testing is ongoing," he said.
The Galaxy Fold is the first foldable smartphone from a major vendor. It was originally slated to ship April 26, but early reviewers ran into problems with broken screens, usually along the hinge line. Samsung averted disaster by delaying launch yet has gone months without a significant update.
The issue has even prompted Huawei to delay its foldable Mate X.
Apple has been exploring the concept of its own foldable devices for years, but there's no sign of them shipping anytime soon. 2019 iPhones are expected to stick with flat OLED and LCD panels.
Comments
This first generation will live or die by that factor alone.
In the Independent piece, the CEO basically goes as far as to admit that they needed to get something out before a competitor could upstage them. It backfired but I'm not going to shoot the product down before it's even released.
Real world performance is what counts, so I'll wait to see how it performs.
These crummy asian knockoffs have yet to explain the "why" of their gimmicky products, and only the "how".... Typical.
A foldable phone needs to be light and thin. Both of those metrics can be more than today's non-folders, because there will some compromise with the market willing to make some compromise for the larger screen. But even if this same Samsung were durable, it's just too thick and too heavy for 99.9% of those wanting a folder. Once the novelty wore off, this thing would be a brick. A functional brick, but still a brick.
“Some issues we didn't even think about.” - Scamdung Electronics CEO
Fat Phone, Square Tablet
Does anyone remember 2014’s Blackberry Passport. It wasn’t lauded for its square display; it was mocked, and no other manufacturer until now has introduced anything of significance with a square aspect ratio. This issue alone is likely what keeps Apple at the drawing board, if they haven’t already walked away from the entire concept. How do you combine the 9:16 aspect ratio of a smartphone, which in portrait offers a natural document scrolling solution and in landscape offers an ideal video viewing solution, with a tablet’s aspect ratio (Apple’s are 4:3 in the more commonly held landscape orientation).
Square is just not a very useful aspect ratio. It’s not great for documents; if you size to fit in the horizontal dimension, then you don’t get very much of the document shown at-a-time in the vertical dimension. Try this on an iPad by holding it in portrait in a webpage and then tapping the browser bar to bring up the keyboard. What’s left shown of the webpage is what a square display presents all the time, without even a keyboard being displayed. Then imagine a keyboard intruding into that space. At least the Blackberry had a separate physical keyboard. Square also doesn’t offer anything different when rotating to landscape. So watching videos or working a spreadsheet aren’t going to be very satisfying experiences on such a screen.
The Samsung Fold is yet another refrigerator combined with a toaster. One function defeats the other. The toaster warms the device, which as a fridge is fighting to keep food cold. The Fold as a tablet defeats the pocketability of a smartphone while adding the very real potential of a vector for mechanical failure, and a poor tablet experience. And it’s likely the finger feel on the tablet display, due to it being plastic-covered and not glass, will provide another point of user experience compromise.