iFixit Abruptly Removes Its Galaxy Fold Teardown At Samsung's Request, But Why?

One of the things that tech fans love is to see the insides of gadgets to get an idea of if they can be fixed if something breaks, and to satisfy curiosity. One of the great purveyors of teardowns is iFixit, and not long ago it published a teardown of the controversial Galaxy Fold smartphone. The major issue with the Galaxy Fold is that several of the devices had screen failures in the hands of reviewers only a short time after being received. Samsung vowed to investigate the failures and delayed the launch of the smartphone.

How Samsung could have missed such glaring issues with the screen during its testing is a mystery. Samsung doesn't want people getting a look at the inside of the Galaxy Fold as it has asked, in a roundabout way, for iFixit to remove its teardown of the device. The source link that HotHardware used in our iFixit teardown story now lands on a page that explains what happened.

iFixit wrote that its teardown had supported its suspicion that the Galaxy Fold had insufficient protection from debris that could damage the screen. iFixit notes that it was given the Galaxy Fold that it gutted by a "trusted partner" and that Samsung requested via that partner that iFixit remove the teardown.

iFixit noted that it was under no legal or other obligation to remove the teardown, but that it had removed it "out of respect for this partner." The company goes on to say that it considers the partner that provided the Fold "an ally in making devices more repairable." iFixit says that it is withdrawing its story until it can purchase a Galaxy Fold at retail.