A week with the Samsung Galaxy Fold

I will say this about the Galaxy Fold, however: it hasbeen a hell of a conversation piece. I’ve had a LOT of dialogues with strangers
since I started using it as my day-to-day. And let’s be honest, that’s a big
part of being an early adopter.
The Galaxy Fold is also the most polarizingdevice I can recall to have used. Everyone who sees the thing wants to play
with it, but reaction has been very mixed. I was at a FedEx store the other day
and ended up handing it off to two of the four employees during the five
minutes I was waiting to get a package.
Interestingly, they all seemed to be awareof the screen issues. Foldables have captured the public imagination like few
recent consumer electronics. That’s going to be a mixed bag for Samsung. On the
upside, it means a larger potential user base. On the downside, more people are
looking on as the company figures out what to do with a malfunctioning product.
On the whole, people at the FedEx store and
the various TSA/airline employees I’ve interacted with have been impressed by
the product. One said it was smaller than she expected, which took me back a
bit, after so many have commented on how bulky it is. I suppose she was
expecting me to unfold an iPad.
I’ve fallen somewhere between the two. The
fold is undoubtedly an impressive bit of engineering when it’s working. For
now, it seems our early suspicions that the device wasn’t ready for prime time
appear to have been on the mark, as the company has shifted from “a limited
number of early Galaxy Fold samples” to pushing back the launch indefinitely.
It opens up the field to a number of otheralready announced foldable devices (assuming they don’t experience similarproblems). Of course, Samsung’s product lines, it should be noted, have bounced
back from worse.
Anyway, this marks the end of my daily
notes. I still plan to have a review this week, in spite of, well, everything.