Samsung came under plenty of scrutiny last year when it released its first foldable phone with the Galaxy Fold. The initial batch of the folding display was found to be easy to damage, forcing Samsung to rework the foldable’s design and delay its official launch. Even after that concerns about durability remained and it’s only now that the first gen devices have been used for several months that people are realizing it’s not quite as fragile as it appeared.
Enter the Galaxy Z Fold2 which brings improvements in nearly every way possible. YouTuber Zack Nelson aka JerryRigEverything did his signature durability test on Samsung’s top-end foldable and the results show better structural integrity compared to last year.
Right off the bat, we see the new 6.2-inch outward display in action. It’s made from glass and naturally scratches at a level 6 on Mohs scale of hardness.
Then we get to the star of the show – the 7.6-inch foldable Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel on the inside. There’s a pre-applied screen protector this year which sits atop a second plastic cover over the panel.
Without much surprise, we see scratches at a level 2 on Mohs scale of hardness just like last year’s model. A stronger push with a fingernail also leaves permanent damage.
Scratches at a level 2 (Credit: JerryRigEverything)
Of course the Fold2 is no ordinary device and that soft screen is safely stowed away when you carry it around. The only chance of it getting scratched is when you actually use it but then people don’t often forcefully push their fingernails into their smartphones.
Back to the video at hand – after confirming the sides of the phone are made from metal, Zack placed a small mixture of dust and rubble on the Z Fold 2’s main display. Unlike last year’s experiment, the Z Fold 2’s improved hinge and tiny bristles managed to keep the debris from entering the inside the phone.
The side-mounted fingerprint scanner worked okay during the initial setup but a few scratches rendered it unusable. Moving on to the bend test, the Z Fold 2 manages to survive yet again despite some efforts from the host. Samsung’s refined hinge and improved build managed to hold up nicely with little to no flexing.
The Z Fold 2 passes the bend test easily (Credit: JerryRigEverything)
We’ll see how the improved hinge mechanism works complete with its tiny bristles as well as all the guts of the Z Fold 2 in the upcoming teardown.