The Galaxy Z Fold 4 was revealed earlier this month with Samsung promising that it can outlast 200,000 folds, but that wasn’t the case for one customer. Posted to Reddit, user u/Merzo1290 shared an image of their brand-new Fold 4 that had broken just five hours after picking it up. According to the poster, they opened the Fold 4 a single time, heard a snap, and saw a devastating crack straight down the middle on the hinge.
The broken Fold 4 was at least able to call a local Samsung support center, so it wasn’t entirely useless after the break. As many have echoed in the comments section, this scenario is the fear of every device owner. Luckily, the problem seems to have been identified as an issue regarding defective UTG (ultra-thin glass). While obviously not ideal, fans can take a little bit of comfort in the fact that it’s not a new issue for Samsung foldables, so it’s easy to identify. And looking at similar reports with the Fold 2 and Fold 3, these incidents are usually only seen with a small minority of devices.
One commenter points out that the issue has been present since the Z Fold 2 but seems only to affect less than five percent of all devices, based on previous polls in the Galaxy Fold subreddit. While that number is far from an official report, it can give potential buyers an idea of what to expect when unboxing their Galaxy Z Fold 4 for the first time. Five percent is certainly a small fraction of users experiencing the issue, but it does mean that opening a new device only to find it broken isn’t impossible.
It’s for this reason that many urge Z Fold buyers to spend the extra cash upon purchase to be insured with Samsung Care Plus, Samsung’s official device insurance. Without it, someone with a faulty device may be out of luck depending on how exactly it breaks and other warranty information.
While the idea of a unit breaking the moment you lay your hands on it is certainly worrying, it’s good to know that both the Flip 4 and Fold 4 come with a one-year limited warranty that covers faulty hardware in the U.S. This means that, should a similar incident with the UTG happen to you, you’re likely going to get a new device free of charge. That said, make sure to look up the specific warranty information you received upon purchase to know for certain what is and isn’t covered in your region.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.