Better be safe than sorry. Today, Samsung Electronics has finally issued a statement in response to problems hounding its foldable smartphone.

The Korean technology giant says it will postpone the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Fold to a later date. This, after the displays of some units issued to reviewers broke and malfunctioned, even without peeling off the thin layer — something that people like American YouTuber Marques Brownlee mistook for a screen protector — from the panel.

It’s a no-no for a device whose main highlight is a display that can purportedly be opened and closed around 200,000 times before problems could occur.

After one day of use… pic.twitter.com/VjDlJI45C9

— Steve Kovach (@stevekovach) April 17, 2019

Just to give you an idea of one Samsung Galaxy Fold problem even if its screen’s protective layer has not been removed

The development comes just a few days before the supposed April 26 release of the Galaxy Fold in the United States, where it was going to be sold for $1,980 or roughly P102,951 in Philippine pesos. This week’s media events in Hong Kong and Shanghai have apparently been called off as well.

This brings us back to 2016, when the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was recalled because of exploding and overheating batteries.

But while that one happened after the smartphone became available on the market, this year’s issues were discovered before sales have started — fortunately — and for a device that only a handful could afford. So we believe that it would be much easier for Samsung to bounce back from this mishap this time. We wonder how it could affect the eventual release of the Huawei Mate X and other similar products, though.

Samsung’s official statement

Samsung Galaxy Fold specs

• 7.3-inch foldable Dynamic AMOLED display, 2,152 x 1,536 resolution
• 4.6-inch HD Super AMOLED cover display
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor
• 12GB RAM
• 512GB storage
• Triple rear cameras (12-megapixel main camera, 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 12-megapixel telephoto camera)
• Dual front cameras (10-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel depth sensor)
• 10-megapixel cover camera
• Fingerprint reader (side-mounted)
• 4,380mAh battery with 18-watt fast charging
• Samsung One UI based on Android 9.0 Pie

Video you may want to watch

In-depth look at the Huawei Mate X

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