Google hasn't magically figured out how to fix the problem with the screens failing after a few hundred bends; neither has Samsung, which is most likely their display supplier.
On top of that, there is no viable market for a phone over $1200 (and, arguably, no market for over $1000, ask Apple how their sales have been going down since the peak in 2015); what were they even thinking? This is ridiculous even for a halo product.
A few hundred?! That's like a week of use. Does that happen a lot? Do we have a way of estimating the average number of folds a user can expect before failure?
This guy independently tested a Flip 3, getting authentic humans to perform the folds rather than an automated test rig, and the hinge was the first component to give up after 418,500 cycles with the display itself surviving.
The 200,000 figure isn't super meaningful unless they report average folds to failure and standard deviation.
From that article, it could be that they test to 200,000 folds because at that point 99.6% have failed, and the 50% failure rate might be at 100,000. Or 20,000. Or 190,000.
I don't think they're saying that 100% of phones will last to 200,000 folds. That would be a bold claim indeed.
If it's 0% failure at 200k folds, that means the 200k is about six standard deviations away from the mean, so I think (statistics gurus please correct) that says the average device will last for 1.7m folds.
Product lifetime is generally modeled using the Weibull distribution[1]. Depending on the parameters, a normal distribution is a reasonable approximation. Without data on the parameters, and just discussing whether "tested to 200,000 folds" means that every device will survive 200k folds, I think it's fair to use a normal distribution.
Agreed that they probably expect some percentage of RMAs. In fact, I'd argue that "tested to 200k folds" means that 200k gets them enough failures to model the lifetime distribution, so the average lifetime is probably considerably less than 200k.
That's the same Fold that everyone had to RMA repeatedly due to display failures. The story visited the HN front page at least once, and then Samsung did absolutely nothing to fix it.
I'm sorry, but I don't trust anyone claiming they've solved it until they've proven after 2 or 3 gens that there are no elevated failure rates.
Maybe this Google phablet will be the first that solved it, but I can't press X any harder for doubt.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google in fact did little to no market research. At least Stadia (RIP) didn't seem like an idea that was properly researched.
They haven't figured anything. Their flagship pixels phones always had bottom of the barrel components. Their goal is to cut costs. Pixels at manufacturer cost is better than samsungs for every employee every year. And their employees want foldables. Simple as that.
it's almost like pixels are designed by AI were all the feedback it have is what youtube reviewers will praise/complain after unboxing a free phone and nothing else. One component that was always bottom of the barrel is modem, because well, no reviewer reviews modems.
gladly not CISO for that org that had a bunch of pixels, but last Pro models had a modem that would heat up to the point of safety shutdown after 30min video calls. Of course there would be no feedback on the OS. Android would just show no data signal with full 4G bars and users would have no idea what was happening. and earlier this year had FOUR remote exploits. In a modem. remote exploits. just marvelous. Whole org had to drop to 3G... i mean, whoever was lucky to be out of the US. Those in 3G-less US were stuck with wifi phones, because they also announced it right before their march update, which only arrived in april. pixels are great.
Google hasn't magically figured out how to fix the problem with the screens failing after a few hundred bends; neither has Samsung, which is most likely their display supplier.
On top of that, there is no viable market for a phone over $1200 (and, arguably, no market for over $1000, ask Apple how their sales have been going down since the peak in 2015); what were they even thinking? This is ridiculous even for a halo product.