Samsung Galaxy Fold’s iFixit Teardown Details Exactly What the Company Tweaked

iFixit has published its full teardown of the retooled Samsung Galaxy Fold, months after the website agreed to take down its teardown of the original Galaxy Fold. The repair and teardown website has detailed everything that Samsung has tweaked in Galaxy Fold to make sturdier and to solve the various display issues that plagued the original version. To recall, Samsung Galaxy Fold recently went on sale in a number of markets around the world. The company is also re-opening the pre-bookings for the foldable phone in India on October 11.

According to iFixit, Samsung has patched a number of leaky spots in the Galaxy Fold that previously allowed debris to get in and ruin the display. The first major change is the addition of small protective covers on either ends of the fold.

“When closed, the screen is protected—but the spine is still flanked by gaps that our opening picks hop right into,” iFixit noted. “These gaps are less likely to cause immediate screen damage but will definitely attract dirt.”

One of the biggest changes is the reinforced screen that includes an extra metal layer to provide ample backing for the display.

“All this metal makes the display surprisingly rigid, even when separated from the chassis,” iFixit remarks.

Additionally, the thin protective layer on the main screen that was not supposed to be removed but was removed by early reviewers is still present on the Galaxy Fold. Samsung has, however, extended it to the phone's edges thereby removing the temptation of take it off.

“We still can't believe that this layer wasn't hidden from the get-go. It looks so similar to the pre-installed screen protectors that ship with Galaxy S10 phones. Did they really think no one would pick at it?” iFixit wonders.

Among other changes, Samsung has covered the hinges with tape to stop the debris from “sneaking in through the pick-sized gaps in the outer spine.”

As mentioned, Samsung has made a number of changes to the phone to fix earlier issues, however iFixit still found the phone to be fragile. The Samsung Galaxy Fold was of course also found to be difficult to repair and was awarded a repairability score of just 2 out of 10.