Foldable Smartphones Explained: What’s Actually Improved Since the First Galaxy Fold

Foldable smartphones launched with a rocky reputation. Early review units suffered visible crease lines, hinge failures, and in at least one high-profile case a delayed launch after screens broke during testing. Years later, foldables have matured into a legitimate, if still premium, category, and most of the early skepticism no longer matches how current models actually hold up.

The Two Main Foldable Formats

Foldable smartphones generally fall into two design categories. Book-style foldables open like a small book to reveal a larger internal tablet-like screen, with a smaller external display for quick tasks when closed. Flip-style foldables fold top to bottom instead, keeping a phone-sized screen when unfolded while shrinking down to a compact square when closed. The two formats serve different priorities: book-style foldables emphasize a bigger canvas for multitasking, video and reading, while flip-style foldables prioritize pocketability and a distinctive form factor closer to a traditional compact phone.

What Actually Changed With the Hinge

The mechanical hinge is the single most important part of a foldable phone’s durability, and it’s where the most engineering progress has happened. Early hinges left visible gaps that let dust and debris work their way toward the delicate display, and initial software updates that were supposed to fix inconsistent behavior instead worsened durability for some early buyers. Current hinge designs from Samsung, Honor, Huawei and other foldable makers use more sophisticated multi-link mechanisms with sealed water-resistant construction, and the crease that used to be sharply visible has become noticeably shallower on newer models, even though it hasn’t disappeared entirely on most designs.

The Screen Itself Is Tougher, But Still More Fragile Than Glass

Foldable displays use a flexible plastic or ultra-thin glass cover layer instead of the rigid glass found on a normal phone screen, since a rigid pane can’t fold without shattering. That flexible top layer is inherently softer than standard phone glass, which means foldable screens remain more susceptible to scratches from fingernails, grit, or rough surfaces than a conventional smartphone display. Manufacturers have improved the coating and internal support layers significantly since the earliest models, but the fundamental trade-off, a screen that bends will always be less scratch-resistant than one that doesn’t, hasn’t gone away.

Software Has Caught Up, Mostly

Early foldables often felt like a hardware experiment running software that hadn’t been built with a folding screen in mind, with apps that didn’t resize properly across the crease or that failed to take advantage of the larger internal display. Google’s continued work on Android’s large-screen and foldable support, along with manufacturer-specific multitasking features like split-screen and app continuity when unfolding, has closed most of that gap. Some third-party apps still render awkwardly on a foldable’s unusual aspect ratio, but the experience is far more polished than it was in the category’s first few years.

The Price and Durability Trade-off Buyers Should Still Weigh

Foldable smartphones remain significantly more expensive than equivalent non-folding flagships from the same brand, and while hinge and screen durability have improved substantially, they still carry more moving parts and more failure points than a phone with no hinge at all. Manufacturers now typically rate their hinges for well over 100,000 fold cycles in lab testing, but real-world longevity also depends on how carefully an owner handles debris, moisture, and the temptation to press hard on the crease.

Sources

• Manufacturer foldable hinge durability and fold-cycle testing disclosures
• Independent foldable phone durability and teardown testing from major tech outlets
• Android developer documentation on large-screen and foldable app support
• Historical foldable phone launch and recall coverage from major tech outlets