iFixit has posted a video teardown of Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip, giving us good look at the phone’s internals and revealing that the brushes on its hinge might not stop much dust from getting inside your phone.
The display manages to come away with no major issues once you remove the plastic outer bezel that helps prevent dirt and dust getting in. It takes a little heat to the edges to loosen any adhesive and then can slide right off in one piece as the new T-peg hinge design helps keep the display crease flush and in place above the folding mechanism.
We saw that iFixit gave the only other flip foldable smartphone a 1/10 repair rating and was “one of the most complex phones ever.” By contrast, this Galaxy Z Flip teardown looks far more straightforward and pedestrian by comparison. Unlike the Razr, the Z Flip doesn’t seem to rely quite as heavily on adhesive for structural integrity in the same way, being far more “packed” with internal components.
For the test, iFixit folded up the Z Flip and dropped it into a bag of purple dust. After taking the phone out of the bag, iFixit shook a lot of dust out of the phone, which you can see in the GIF below. Enough dust got inside the phone that it even stopped the hinge from opening up all the way.
It’s important to note that Samsung says in a support doc that the Z Flip isn’t water or dust resistant, and a splash screen says something similar when you first turn on the phone, according to iFixit. And iFixit acknowledges that its bag test isn’t necessarily indicative of normal, real-world use, so perhaps the Z Flip’s fibers are better designed for repelling day-to-day pocket lint than the very fine powder that iFixit used.
