The design of foldable smartphones opens new horizons for fans of destructive gadget testing. Such smartphones with flexible screens have much more complex elements (the display itself, the hinge, etc.) than conventional models, which creates additional potential problems for buyers. And these are the cases that can be clearly demonstrated by various experiments.

This time, the Polish YouTube channel Mrkeybrd conducted live broadcast (unfortunately, at the time of writing the video is not available) and later the author posted two separate videos with hinge endurance test Samsung Galaxy Flip5 and Motorola Razr 40 Plus. The test was based on robotic folding and unfolding of smartphones at different forces and speeds. This can relatively replicate real human use. In addition, after certain milestones, the smartphones had to be immersed in water, heated, and at the end of the test – in a mixture of flour and eggs (which is hardly related to normal use).

The Motorola Razr 40 Plus was the first to fail. After 126,266 cycles, its display failed. However, the author of the test put the device in a dust bag during the test. And since the smartphone has IP52 protection, which means that it is not fully protected against dust and is only protected against water splashes, a dust particle apparently got under the screen, which led to the appearance of a line of burnt pixels on the screen after 126,266 cycles. In normal use, the smartphone would probably have survived many more cycles.

The first signs of problems in the Samsung Galaxy Flip5 appeared after 223 thousand cycles. Before that, the smartphone was submerged in dust (which should not be the norm for it) and water (which is already provided for in the list of features of the device, it has IPX8 water protection). As a result, the hinge would no longer hold in the closed position and could make strange noises when opened, although the smartphone itself remained in perfect working order.

And it stayed that way for almost as many cycles. After 401,146 folds and unfolds, a long pink line appeared on the Flip5’s display, marking the official end of the test. The display still showed the image.

Unfortunately, the smartphone managed to get into the aforementioned flour and eggs before that. And it would have been really interesting to see how long it would have lasted without such “obstacles”. But even if such things happened to it, in terms of “100 cycles per day”, the gadget would have been able to work for almost 11 years.