Up next in 10
Mark was invited inside Samsung Display’s top-secret headquarters in South Korea as one of the first journalists in the entire world to ever step inside their labs. In this video, he’ll give you an exclusive first look at the massive breakthrough coming to the Galaxy Z Fold 8: a game-changing technology called Flex Titanium.
After seven years of refining foldables, Samsung has finally found a way to make a foldable display nearly crease-free while making it more durable and even thinner. Mark sat down with top Samsung executives Byung Duk Yang and KyungJin Yoo to get the inside scoop on how they layered a microscopic titanium-alloy film with a flexible titanium plate to completely eliminate screen air gaps and crush the crease.
You’ll also come behind the scenes into their automated torture chambers to witness devices being bent 18,000 times a day in extreme environments ranging from a freezing -4°F (-20°C) to a blistering 140°F (60°C). You’ll see a 21.7-gram steel ball drop test, an insane 160-point light reflection test, and find out exactly why Samsung says they "love" the threat of Apple’s rumored iPhone Ultra entering the foldable market this September.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I'm one of only five journalists in the entire world who has ever been allowed inside Samsung
0:04
Display's top-secret headquarters in South Korea, and what I saw inside those labs is about to
0:09
completely change how we look at foldable phones forever. With the Galaxy Z Fold 8 series launching
0:15
Samsung has finally cracked the code on the one thing holding foldables back. It finally demoed
0:20
a virtually crease-free screen that is thinner, stronger, and designed to make Apple very
0:25
very nervous. By the end of this video, you're going to see the exact torture test this screen
0:29
went through, the wild new science behind it, and why the foldable wars just changed forever
0:37
Allow me to set the stage. Samsung was the first mainstream phone brand to start showing off
0:42
foldable displays all the way back in 2009, but we didn't get the original Galaxy Fold on shelves
0:47
until 2019. For seven years, they've been iteratively grinding away at making these things
0:52
mainstream. But ahead of the next generation of Samsung foldable phones, including the flagship
0:57
Galaxy Z Fold 8. I was invited directly to their core R&D facilities in South Korea
1:02
While I was there, I sat down with two of the mastermind executives leading this revolution
1:06
They told me that while the first-gen foldables were massive innovations, consumers have consistently demanded improvements in thickness, weight, and of course
1:14
that perennial annoyance, the screen crease. Well, Samsung's response to those demands is
1:19
a massive technical breakthrough coming to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 series. Let me introduce you to
1:24
Flex Titanium. We've seen Samsung use titanium in phone frames to support overall durability
1:30
but Flex Titanium is the first time the material is implemented inside the actual display structure
1:35
itself. Flex Titanium is a dual defense system consisting of two key parts, a titanium alloy
1:41
film and a titanium plate. First, you have the titanium alloy film, which sits directly beneath
1:47
the OLED panel to support it. It offers 20 times greater stiffness than traditional plastic films
1:52
yet it is somehow only 30% the thickness of a human hair
1:57
This gives you a display panel that is significantly slumber, but incredibly rigid when you pressing on it But titanium by its very nature isn exactly known for being flexible So Samsung basically formulated an entirely new proprietary titanium alloy specifically
2:11
to achieve the exact stretchability needed for a folding screen. Then there's the titanium plate
2:17
which is a flexible structure supporting the display module from underneath. In previous
2:22
foldables, microscopic air gaps between the display module and the adhesive plate could
2:27
cause the screen to sag or crease over time. But this new plate allows for an incredibly tight
2:32
seamless bond. It completely eliminates those air gaps. To make the actual folding area smooth
2:38
Samsung engineered a highly precise lattice structure right where the screen bends. An
2:43
ultra-advanced laser hole process fills the gaps in that lattice design, thus increasing the complete
2:49
integrity of the material. With Flex Titanium, the visibility of the crease is dramatically reduced
2:55
When you look at it, the crease is, in fact, practically gone. But a smooth screen doesn't mean anything if it breaks after a few months of folding
3:05
And that's why Samsung let me walk into the testing labs to see how the new panels are torture tested
3:10
Get this. 500,000 folding tests. That is how many times Samsung Display bends these panels to make sure they're ready to survive real-world daily wear and tear
3:20
Inside this chamber, they're controlling all sorts of elements, including not just like the folding and unfolding using robots
3:26
but also you're able to control the temperature and humidity. And we're talking about anywhere between negative 20 degrees Celsius
3:32
all the way up to 60 degrees, which is about 140 degrees Fahrenheit
3:37
When the display is at normal room temperature, Samsung Display tests them to fold up to 500,000 times
3:41
Under extreme desert heat, they test them up to 300,000 folds. And in the brutal sub-zero cold
3:47
these panels still successfully fold up to 60,000 times. And I can't show you, but there are cameras
3:54
eight live feeds that are going on inside, and it uses computer vision to tell the engineers
4:00
when a display fails or doesn't. So overall, I think if you want something this durable
4:05
you need the testing to back it up And now we got our first look at how it works Then there the impact testing Samsung positioned a foldable display under a vertical tube and dropped a solid 21 gram steel ball directly onto the screen
4:20
They did this at various heights, all the way up to nearly 20 inches without a scratch
4:26
Normally here at Tom's Guide, when we review a smartphone display, we use a specialized colorimeter and software to test the screen head-on
4:33
We measure things like peak brightness, color reproduction, and Delta E accuracy
4:37
It's a thorough testing protocol, but what Samsung Display does inside their testing labs goes way beyond
4:43
They have this massive machine for advanced image quality and reflection testing
4:47
A spherical light source completely coated in a specialized barium sulfate material replicates the absolute highest light reflection rate possible
4:56
Then, scanners measure the light bouncing back from the screen and calculate exactly how much light gets reflected
5:03
Samsung runs this test in eight different directions simultaneously, detecting more than 20 distinct data points for each direction
5:10
That means they are gathering 160 points of data across a rigorous three-minute test while the phone is continuously rotating the entire time
5:19
I have to respect the level of obsession here. All of this precision engineering and automated torture testing brings us to the elephant in the room, Apple
5:28
It is one of the worst-kept secrets in tech right now that Apple plans to finally enter the foldable phone market this coming September with a rumored iPhone Ultra or iPhone Fold
5:37
For years, Samsung has enjoyed a comfortable dominance in the foldable space, but a looming threat from Cupertino would make most companies sweat
5:45
When I brought this up to Samsung executives, they surprised me. They didn't seem worried at all
5:49
In fact, they told me they absolutely love, in quotes, the idea of Apple entering the arena
5:54
Samsung has been iteratively refining this technology in the public eye since 2019
6:00
They've already made the mistakes, took the hits, and figured out how to continuously
6:03
optimize thickness, weight, and durability over several generations. By minimizing the crease
6:09
which has been one of the biggest mental roadblocks for everyday consumers the execs over at Samsung believe the market is poised to explode And ironically Apple entering the space is the exact validation Samsung needs to prove that they were right
6:22
all along. Look, Samsung started showing off flexible prototypes back in 2009. It's been a
6:29
long game approach for nearly two decades. But what does the smartphone of tomorrow look like
6:34
One of the first in the world to see a preview of different form factors and what might be coming
6:39
to a phone near you. We're going to start with the Flex S, which is kind of like a triple foldable
6:44
and we've seen something like this before, but it gets more interesting as we go with each concept
6:48
Here is the outfoldable, so it's folding on the outside, but then it gets really interesting when
6:53
you start looking at other technologies and how things can unfurl. In this case, we're talking
6:57
about a rollable, so this is a Flex slidable, which goes from small all the way out to 7.2 inches
7:03
So imagine being able to press a button on your phone and getting a much larger canvas
7:08
But it gets even more interesting when you talk about the Flex Hybrid because it combines two technology into a single panel
7:14
In this case, you have a foldable and slidable in one. So it starts out very compact and then gets to 7.2 inches
7:22
So imagine this could be the smartphone of tomorrow in your pocket, but have a tablet size when you want it
7:28
And if the Flex Titanium display finally pushes the Galaxy Z Fold 8 comfortably and completely into the mainstream and takes adoption to the next level
7:35
I'm convinced it is 100% because of the incredible science happening inside those Samsung display labs
7:42
We are just getting started with our coverage leading up to Samsung Unpacked, and I'm going to have full hands-on impressions with the upcoming family of Z Fold devices
7:50
So now is a great time to make sure you're subscribed to Tom's Guide if you're not already
7:54
Let me know in the comments, does a completely crease-free titanium reinforced screen make you want to finally buy a foldable
8:01
And do you think Apple is arriving too late to the party? For Tom's Guide, this is Mark Spoonhour
#Computers & Electronics