The iPhone Duo hinge has started to loosen after more than 451,000 folds on a lab test machine, and the phone still works. At 100 folds a day, 451,000 folds equals more than 12 years of use, well past what even a heavy user would reach.
CNET lab director Matthew Murray reported the first signs of hinge wear on November 13, after 20 days of folding the phone around the clock on the lab’s Fold-a-Phone machine. In the machine, the screen now unfolds most of the way and stops 5 to 10 degrees short of flat.
iPhone Duo hinge wore in stages
The lab first saw the hinge change its opening force and motion around 390,000 folds on Tuesday, November 10, and the change built up gradually. The wire that opens the screen began to pull back before the phone reached fully open, and the screen then coasted the rest of the way.
At about 440,300 folds, early on Friday, November 13, the screen no longer had time to open all the way before the machine closed it again. You can still open the phone fully by hand, but it has lost the distinctive snap it had at the start of the test.
The Fold-a-Phone completes 900 folds an hour, so the count climbed from the 75,000 folds in the earlier fold test report on October 27 to more than 451,000 in 17 days. Each fold takes about four seconds and copies how someone opens a phone, uses it for a few minutes and puts it back in a pocket.
The phone has not failed yet
The iPhone Duo still operates and holds the screen at other angles without trouble. The lab has seen no cracking, no more visible crease and no other damage, so the few missing degrees of angle do not meet its failure rules.
Those rules count a phone as failed when it loses power, when its sensors stop detecting the screen in the right position within the expected time, or when the screen goes black. The lab says an owner might not even notice the change at first, and it plans to keep folding the same phone. It streams the test on YouTube on weekdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
Apple has not published a fold rating for the iPhone Duo, so the lab’s own guesses ranged from 500,000 to 1.5 million folds. Most current foldable phones are rated between 200,000 and 500,000 folds, and the iPhone Duo hinge began to change at 390,000.
The lab test misses pocket wear
The Fold-a-Phone only opens and closes the phone, so it does not test what sand or dust does to the hinge. In a separate durability test, dust collected around the hinge until the magnets could no longer pull the iPhone Duo shut.
The phone in the machine has had no cracks, so its result cannot settle the iPhone Duo screen problems owners have reported near the hinge since launch. Apple said on October 26 that a small number of units have an inner display issue.
