
What it is: Samsung and other companies like to brag about how they’re first in innovations, but what good are those innovations if they don’t work?
Samsung and other companies like to boast about how they innovate. While innovation is fine, it means little if it doesn’t work. One example of this occurred with the Samsung Note 7 phones that caught on fire because of battery defects. Now Samsung released a $1980 smartphone that folds in half called the Samsung Fold.
The big innovation is that the Samsung Fold is the first foldable phone on the market. The problem is that its screen has numerous flaws that reviewers have quickly discovered after a few days of use.
The main problem is that the fold fails to work seamlessly. Instead, the fold causes a crease in the screen with obvious lines dividing the screen in half. In some units, half of the screen fails but in others, the whole screen still displays images but with a distinct line down the middle.
So the big problem is why does Samsung and other companies have to push innovation so rapidly whether it works or not? The reason is because they’re rushing to claim they’re first rather than claim they’re the best.
It’s easy to be first. It’s much harder to be the best. Foldable phones are the future, but until the screen displays can handle the daily stress of being folded in half multiple times a day over several years, foldable screens are not feasible.
That’s the reason why Apple waits before jumping into a market whether it’s the MP3 portable player market or the foldable smartphone market. It makes no sense to be first if the product doesn’t work.
After Samsung’s Note 7 phones blew up and now Samsung’s Fold phones have serious screen defects, it’s easy to see why waiting is usually the best strategy.
When people buy a $1980 phone, they expect it to work. When people buy a $150 phone, they also expect it to work. Working is the basic criteria of any product, yet Samsung fails to understand this time and time again.
Foldable phones may become commonplace soon, but not until manufacturers can master the foldable screen. Until then, foldable smartphones remain an interesting but elusive idea just like tablets remained an interesting and elusive idea until Apple came late to the market with the iPad.
To read more about Samsung’s problems with its foldable phones, click here.