Gadgetory

so we've been talking a lot about the fold and more specifically the questions that you guys have the type of stuff that's coming at me that you guys are asking and one of the big questions that I've been getting is relating to cases it wasn't immediately obvious when you saw this thing at the keynote what would happen in a case Department even for myself and I didn't expect cases to exist at all because of this very bizarre hinge situation but it turns out I completely missed a case that was included in the box during the unboxing video samsung includes something it's I mean it's very flimsy and basic as you can see not that that's a bad thing because it doesn't add much bulk and this is the weird part this part right here because it has to have this screen cut out because you have the external display as you're aware of as well as the cutouts for the camera earpiece and whatnot now I've had cases like this in the past four different smartphones I believe this is made out of a material called aramid which is like a Kevlar it allows it to be rigid enough to not just snap in half but also be incredibly thin and light so I don't mind the material but it's not a case in the sense that it's gonna give you a ton of protection if that's what you're looking for to protect your investment because as we know this is a very expensive smartphone I thought I should go ahead and install this thing you've talked a little bit about the restrictions relating to cases on a device like this whatever case comes out for it whether it's from a third-party manufacturer or from Samsung themselves it's gonna have to deal with the fact that this thing bends in the middle it has a hinge in the middle so as you can see this only installs to that point there and then the other piece clips on like this leaving space for the front-facing display and then this allows you to close it down like this I've had this case on a little bit and I've interacted with it to decide whether I liked it or not it's a bit strange there's some benefit some drawbacks obviously the benefit it's a bit of it slides out of your pocket less because well it's not as slippery as glass happens to be and then when it comes to the front-facing screen the exterior screen it tells you very obviously where the edge of that screen happens to be so when you go to pull down the notifications or bring up your apps you know immediately where the edge happens to be the right left top bottom edge now the downside of that is it's not it's not incredibly smooth dragging up from there I guess it's just not that elegant is the way I would describe it it does work but it's not particularly elegant now the backside of the case that's less of an issue this is more of a typical case fit that you'd be used to on a standard slab style smartphone it doesn't really interact with the phone in the way that the front portion of the case does now when it's in the flipped open mode you also get this weird thing where part of your hand is grasping a nice case texture and the other hand is touching this glass so that's a bit odd as well I'm sure you'll get used to it but here's the thing should this phone have a case on it I mean that's the real discussion that's what many of you guys are hitting me up about am I personally worried about the durability of it of course it's not IP rated I don't think it's a particularly durable phone when compared to some other stuff that's on the market I do believe in the hinge mechanically but as far as like dropping it as far as beating it up or not treating it nicely I don't think I'd recommend based on my experience with it to this point it has moving parts most of these smart phones whatever we happen to be looking at their slabs like I mean they're just solid slabs solid state nothing moves in there this is a gigantic moving component in the form of this hinge and so I understand the apprehension regarding durability and the need for a case but I do think it's nice to have the option for a case but as far as protecting it from a drop OtterBox style I just don't see how that could possibly work and still interact with the hinge putting this case onto the device exposes just how hard it would be to manufacture a case for something like this and what ever kind of case you have it has to meet up here it can't extend beyond this point is there's a glue material on it right there this strip on there you have to take off a plastic piece in order to apply this and it sticks on there like a glue now I've taken it on and off a couple times and it still remains somewhat sticky so I suppose it's intended for a multiple installation if necessary but it does also showcase that unlike a regular case for a phone that can grip around all sides this flat edge presents its own issues that requires an adhesive so I don't know how long this thing is going to remain on the device before it starts to shimmy off a little bit my feeling is that this is a case less foam even though they've gone ahead and included one and I'm happy about that and I'm happy to have the option it's such a feat of Engineering you kind of want to enjoy the full potential of it and when you're holding it like this you want to feel glass across the entire back when you get to this Ridge with this thing here it just feels awkward you're reminded this is another display there you're reminded of this bizarre implementation it's just not the most confidence-inspiring feeling to have on your really expensive device and this could be part of a bigger conversation in general about cases on smartphones but I feel like at least if you can put a case on something like this this is the s10 or an iPhone or something that you could get one that could protect it depending on what kind of work you do I just don't see how an option like that could be implemented for the fold I think all cases beyond the one that's in the box are gonna be something like this one in order to protect the way you interact with the device and just the way that it functions and because of that I think this is gonna be a caseless situation for me I'm just gonna have to live by the sword die by the sword on this one and this is part of the reason why if you need this next smartphone purchase to be rock-solid it's probably not a good idea to buy a 1.0 device in general when you're talking about a year two years or however long it is the chooks you expect to be using something like this then those durability questions do come into play if you're hoping that some super rugged case is gonna come out for this I don't see it happening and if it does happen I have to believe it's gonna the experience with the device is gonna suffer because of it so I'm not gonna put the official Samsung case on I'm gonna leave a case list and I think most people who buy this thing are probably going to do the same