It turns out that you can damage your iPhone Duo by opening and closing it too much, at least in theory. Don’t worry, you don’t have much free time.
Three weeks ago, CNET place the iPhone Duo on its custom test bench, the Fold-A-Phone. Today, after 440,300 folds, it has finally reached its breaking point.
Sort of, if you’re willing to define “breaking point” vaguely.
According to CNETit still opens up 90 to 95 percent of the way on the Fold-a-Phone platform. And if you open it by hand, you can still open it all the way; it just doesn’t seem as vivid as before.
CNET Readings and images showed changes in the force needed to open the phone around 390,000 times. This included losing the distinctive snap it had when fully opened, and the hinge, unsurprisingly, was looser.
The display still holds up at other angles without issue. The lack of flatness makes not meet CNET failure criteria, which should include loss of power, sensors failing to detect the screen where it should be within the time limit, or screen failure.
As CNET points out that at 100 folds per day, 440,300 folds represent approximately 12 years of use, which far exceeds the practical lifespan of the iPhone Duo. CNET plans to continue testing the iPhone Duo.
Gn tech
