We hate to say we told you so, but we totally did.
A brief hands-on video published online has confirmed our biggest fear about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Fold and its foldable screen: The crease is really visible.
Announced alongside the Galaxy S10 days before Mobile World Congress, the Galaxy Fold has mostly been kept away from curious journalists.
Samsung didn't allow any members of the media to touch the Galaxy Fold at its Unpacked event in San Francisco, and at MWC the device was cleverly showcased in a display case that obscured the screen's crease.
It's almost as if Samsung doesn't want anyone to see there's a glaring crease running down the middle of the display when the Galaxy Fold is open.
But the crease can't be hidden forever. Though Samsung has shared its own perfectly manicured "hands on" footage of the Galaxy Fold where the crease isn't offensively obvious, a video (below) of an alleged AT&T-bound version of the foldable phone in the wild shows otherwise.
It's not just the rather noticeable crease that bothers us, but also the fact that the entire foldable screen doesn't appear flush with the notch positioned in the upper top right corner.
The video also shows us a glimpse of what Android 9 Pie looks like on the Galaxy Fold, but it's far from comprehensive. You can get a better sense of how thick the phone is when folded up. Spoiler alert: it's thicc.
The Galaxy Fold launches in the U.S. and South Korea as a "luxury device" on April 26. It starts at $1,480, which is anything but affordable.
There's no argument the foldable phone is packed full of flagship features like the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip, 12GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and 5G (there's also a regular 4G LTE model). With these specs, I don't think anyone is worried about performance. What we really want to know is, how durable is the screen?
Having the screen fold inward protects it from scratches, but that crease could be a serious dealbreaker if constantly folding and unfolding it quickly wears it out. On the other hand, a screen that folds outward, like Huawei's Mate X, leaves it completely unprotected from the elements.
Those who end up paying top dollar for the Galaxy Fold and the Mate X might forgive them for their foldable flaws; they are first generation devices, after all. But as we've said many times, if foldable phones are ever to become more than a fad and actually usher in the next era of mobile, phone makers will have to make the crease way less visible — among many other challenges that need to be overcome.
