Samsung Galaxy Z Flip’s display is indeed glass — but does it matter?
It breaks anyway
A new breakdown video shows that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a glass surface after all, but who cares — it breaks just the same. Check it out:
Over the weekend, YouTube channel Jerry Rigs Everything got its hands on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and put it through his usual scratch test using different Moh scale hardness test tools. The result was appalling. While Samsung claims that the new ultra-thin glass is as hard as your average glass phone, the truth is that it is not. In fact, Jerry found out, it scratches just the same as the plastic displays used on Samsung's Galaxy Fold or the Motorola Razr.
Everyone asked if Samsung was lying about this magic ultra-thin glass, so YouTuber PBKreviews tried to see what's going on. The result is that, indeed, the display scratched like plastic because it is plastic — on its outer layer. But if you peel that plastic protective layer then you will find the ultra-thin glass which, as you would expect, shatters just as glass when you make it bend too much.
So Samsung appears to be telling the truth but, who the hell cares at this point? For Samsung, if the outer layers is going to scratch just like plastic, why should we care about what is underneath? The scratches are going to happen just like they happen on the Fold and the Razr. Users couldn't care less than the inner layer is made of glass if there is no benefit for them. And since the protective layer can't be user removed when it scratches, it really doesn't add any must-have feature to the phone.
It seems that the ultra-thin glass only serves as a bullet point on a marketing sheet. And these extreme test don't seem to have much value either, since they are not indicative of how users will handle the phone, anyway. I'm afraid that, at the end, we will all have to wait until a few months pass and we could test these phones' durability under normal use.
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Jesus Diaz founded the new Sploid for Gawker Media after seven years working at Gizmodo, where he helmed the lost-in-a-bar iPhone 4 story and wrote old angry man rants, among other things. He's a creative director, screenwriter, and producer at The Magic Sauce, and currently writes for Fast Company and Tom's Guide.