Fold, fold and fold again. It doesn’t matter how many times you open and close the Galaxy Z Fold 7 phone — it’s highly unlikely to give out on you. Samsung Display (SDC) announced Tuesday that its latest foldable OLED panel “remained fully functional after a 500,000-fold durability test,” more than doubling its previous benchmark of 200,000 folds.
Bureau Veritas, a French leader in testing, inspection and certification, tested the screen with 500,000 folds over a 13-day period at a temperature of 25°C (77°F).
For those of you trying to wrap your head around the math, half a million folds translates to the average user folding their phone 100 times a day for 10 years, or prolific users doing 200 folds a day for 6 years. Samsung Display — a separate company from Samsung — says the durability results prove that “durability is no longer a limiting factor in the lifespan of foldable smartphones.”
“As foldable OLED enters its seventh year of commercialization, we’ve achieved another meaningful breakthrough in both durability and design,” Hojung Lee, EVP at Samsung Display, said in a press release. “This new panel … builds consumer confidence in foldable OLED durability.”
Bulletproof glass technology has helped Samsung Display develop its creaseless screens. SDC borrowed from the concept and increased the thickness of its Ultra Thin Glass, the outermost glass on the screen, by 50%. SDC also added high-elastic adhesive to each screen layer, thereby enhancing fold recovery performance by four times the previous design.
CNET reported last week that Apple has tapped Samsung Display to manufacture screens for Apple’s first foldable iPhone, set to launch in summer 2026.
Despite the hype around foldable phones, a CNET survey published on Tuesday showed 64% of people have no interest in buying one of these smartphones in the next year. 20% weren’t sure if they want one, 13% say they do want one and just 3% said they already own one.