Google Pixel Fold Dies In Four Days, Reviewer Suspects 'OLED Death Zone' Could Be The Reason

Google Pixel Fold, the first foldable smartphone from Alphabet Inc.-owned GOOGL, could have some critical design flaws – that could lead to the phone dying within days of use. One of them could be related to how the phone itself is designed.

What Happened: Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo reported that his Google Pixel Fold died after four days of use. He blamed the "OLED death zone" for this, pointing out the design flaws in Google's first foldable smartphone.

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Initially, the bottom ten pixels of Amadeo's Pixel Fold went dead. The problem worsened from thereon, first killing touch on the left half of the display. Eventually, the entire display went dead after four days of use.

Foldable Flaws: One of the issues with foldable smartphones is that they are not the most durable. This is down to the nature of materials currently available and not particularly design flaws on the manufacturers' part. However, Samsung has been in the folding phone business longer, so it has taken the lead on the durability front by a margin. Its Flip and Fold phones have become more solid over the years but still not as much as regular slab-style smartphones.

While it's easy to cover the OLED panels on regular smartphones with durable glass – usually from Corning on most smartphones – foldable phones instead utilize a super thin layer of glass with a protective plastic layer on top.

This allows the screen to be folded, but it also means that it's not very durable or nice to touch.

Across the perimeter of the display on the Google Pixel Fold, the OLED panel is exposed and not uncovered by the plastic layer. Between the raised bezel and the plastic layer, this exposed OLED panel ends up attracting lint and dust particles, further adding to its woes.

The Pixel Fold also has almost flush bezels, meaning the two halves of the display nearly touch each other. This exerts pressure on the dust particles lodged on the edges of the display where the OLED panel is exposed, thereby puncturing the pixels and killing the display in the process.

It remains to be seen if this is just a faulty unit or if the issue also plagues other Google Pixel Fold units.

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