iPhone Duo hinge test: first sign of wear after 451,000 folds
After three weeks on a folding machine, the iPhone Duo no longer opens fully flat. The hinge stops 5 to 10 degrees short, but the phone still works.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesThe iPhone Duo has survived more than 451,000 folds on a testing robot, and its hinge has finally started to give. The screen no longer opens all the way flat. It stops a few degrees short.
The test rig is called the Fold-a-Phone, a custom machine built to open and close a foldable phone around the clock until something breaks. It has been running on the iPhone Duo for 20 days. Yesterday afternoon, during a livestream, the tester noticed the hinge felt looser and the phone wasn't opening with its usual firm sound. By 6 p.m. it was still opening flat. By this morning it wasn't.
Sensor data, photos and video suggest the change began around the 390,000-fold mark on Tuesday afternoon and built up slowly. Between 12:30 and 1 a.m., at roughly 440,300 folds, the screen no longer had time to reach fully open before the machine closed it again.
How bad is the iPhone Duo hinge problem?
Not very, for now. The phone still works and holds other screen positions. There's no cracking, no more visible crease and no other failure. The screen sits only about 5 to 10 degrees from fully open, and you can push it the rest of the way by hand, though without the snap it had before.
That means it doesn't meet the test's failure conditions: loss of power, sensors failing to detect the screen in the right position in time, or a blackout of the display.
How many folds is that in real life?
At 100 folds a day, 451,000 folds equals nearly 12 and a half years of use. Apple hasn't said how many folds the Duo is built for. Guesses inside the testing team run from 500,000, the rating Samsung gives the Galaxy Z Fold 8, up to 1.5 million.
The test continues, and a livestream of the machine runs weekdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET on YouTube.
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