Samsung Galaxy Fold Non-Review: We Are Not Your Beta Testers

 

                                                            The goal of the Galaxy Fold is to be the best of both phones and tablets. Here you see it holding its

                                                            own against an iPhone XS and an iPad mini. Photo: F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal  

 

Do you need to check on notifications and tasks promptly? Simply pull out the foldable phone in the office or on the go to avoid any distractions and larger screen might give you. Lounging at home and want to catch up on some reading while checking work emails? Flip open the phone to the full screen and run your two apps side by side.

Samsung Galaxy’s new foldable phone seems that it could right the wrongs of current smartphones giving customers the best of both worlds, but is it too good to be true? Samsung Galaxy is set to launch their new, futuristic, foldable phone on April 26 and the product is already raking in the bad reviews. The Galaxy Fold is set to be the happy medium between an IPhone and an IPad, but reviewers who have gotten their hands on them in advance have some major concerns about the quality of this new product. Some concerns included apps didn’t resize properly on the screen, the keyboard seemed too small for use, the weight of the device was not comfortable, the crease is somewhat noticeable when the phone is open, and shockingly, the protective layer that we all known to come with a new phone is not to be tampered with.

The first thing most consumers do when they get a new phone is take off the protective layer and admire their un-scratched, glassy phone screen. Without warning most reviewers did just that with their prototypes and immediately experienced cracks in the screen and malfunctioning of the phone. Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal compares the Galaxy Fold to the disastrous Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Stern states, “It all seems like untested design, which rings true of that other disastrous Samsung product launch. The Galaxy Note 7 pushed the innovation envelope on many fronts and ultimately put customers at risk with batteries that begin exploding…companies are looking to sell us the Next Big Thing…adopters will gleefully raise their hands and pay to test drive the future. But we are not all willing to beta testers”.

As you can see, Samsung really went back to the 'candy bar' design with Galaxy Fold,

shown here folded. Photo: F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal 

I chose this article because it always seems that no matter new product Samsung comes out with they are always a step behind Apple. Even if they are designing something that Apple has never even thought of they can’t seem to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. This leads into how this article relates to the marketing concept. By introducing this phone to reviewers to test the market, Samsung seems to be in the development stage of the new-product development process. That would insinuate all previous steps were met in the new product development process, that is until reviewers made it known that there is no warning to not peel the protective layer off. If companies are going to ship products knowing there are weaknesses that can pose a liability issue they need to go back a few steps to the screening process to ensure the new product meets all the criteria of the Consumer Product Safety Act, product liability and their return on investment forecast. 

By: Joanna Stern

Updated April 19, 2019 12:37 p.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-fold-non-review-we-are-not-your-beta-testers

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