Imagine the excitement that one Reddit subscriber had yesterday when he finally received his brand-new Pixel Fold. But also imagine the horror he felt five hours later when the screen protector started peeling on the tablet-sized internal display revealing scratches on the screen. The device owner said that he didn’t even have a chance to view a video on the display and had spent his first few hours with the Pixel Fold setting up the phone. He had opened the device to reveal the internal display only three times.
“If it’s just the screen protector, not a big deal,” the device owner posted. “But those lines scare me. Open the case with Google today. They said it’s going to take 24 to 48 hours to get back to me.” Later on in the day, after talking to Google, the Reddit subscriber said, “Google Rep asked me to remove the screen protector and send them photos. After removing it carefully it looks like the laminate on the screen is lifting in the middle and there are spider web cracks going out from the middle. Looks like I just got a defective display.”
It should be noted that Samsung supplied displays to Google and while one defective display is a rounding error and not significant, well, it is important to the guy who shelled out at least $1,800 for his phone. It also is important for other Pixel Fold owners to see so they can look for flaws on their own units.
The Pixel Fold display features ultra-this glass (UTG) with a protective covering on top. What happened to this gentleman’s Pixel Fold display takes us back to just before the OG Galaxy Fold was supposed to be released in April 2019 when several influencers started peeling the protective plastic layer off of the units they received from Samsung. Despite a warning that Samsung included with the phones that mentioned how the protective layer should not be removed, many did anyway. After a longer than five-month delay, the phone was finally released in September 2019.
To reiterate, one defective screen is no reason for alarm. And indeed, Google seems to be right on top of the problem at this point. Still, considering how many Pixel models have shipped with some type of issue(s), this is something that Pixel Fold owners should be looking out for.
