A year from now, this is likely to have all blown over. A year from now, the Samsung Galaxy Fold’s turbulent takeoff may well be a footnote in the largest story of foldables. For now, however, it’s an important caveat that will come up in every conversation about the nascent product category.
How history remembers this particular debacle will depend on a number of different factors, the ultimate success of the category chief among them. If foldables do takeoff, the Galaxy Fold’s very public false start will be remembered as little more than a blip. There’s plenty of reasons to root for this — devices have seemingly hit the upper threshold of product footprint. If the trend toward larger screens continues, it’s going to take a clever form factor like this to accommodate that need.
If foldables are relegated to the dustbin of history, however, the Fold misfire will take much of the heat. It’s clear that a trail of broken units will have little impact on Samsung’s bottom line. Two Galaxy Note 7 recalls were a testament to the hardware giant’s resilience in the public eye, after serving as a rounding error in the company’s bottom line that year. Sending some half-baked models to a handful of reviews wasn’t nearly as major of a mistake, but the category, much like the Fold itself, is in a fragile state.
It’s telling that Huawei followed suit and went back to the drawing board with the Mate X, in spite of an overwhelmingly positive reception when the device was unveiled at Mobile World Congress back in February. Put simply, Huawei wanted to avoid replaying the Fold debacle. Instead, the company is having it both ways, releasing the original device in its native China a month or so ago, while readying the announcement of a more fortified model at next year’s MWC.
We, of course, had our own issues with the second swing at the Fold. On a personal level, I got a lot of vitriol from Samsung diehard, including accusations that I was somehow attempting to stifle innovation by “purposely” breaking the screen. I’ve been doing this job for a long a time. I’m not going to put my name on line by sabotaging a device — nor am I going to not report on what I genuinely believe to be a still undercooked product.
In a recent interview with TechCrunch, the company seems to have come to peace with the state of the device, even if its stated sales figures are still very much a gray area. The incident no doubt left other companies rethinking their plans. Ultimately, the foldable landscape was pretty desolate in 2019.
There were plenty of prototypes and promises, as there long have been. TCL, Oppo and Xiaomi showed us what could be, but those generally fell somewhere between potential and pipe dream. Excluding a handful of dual-screen devices and the very reference designy Royole device that was announce the previous year, we’re basically looking at Samsung, Huawei and Motorola’s forthcoming Razr here.
All of this certainly dampens analyst hopes that foldables and 5G would combine to reinvigorate flagging smartphone sales. 2020 will be a moment of truth, however. In spite of a false start, I anticipate seeing even more foldables at next year’s MWC, including the new Mate X and something from OnePlus, for starters. For most manufacturers (including Samsung), the impulse will be to simply forget the events of 2019 and reengage with a foldable future.
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