Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, went on sale on 23 October 2026. Reports of cracked screens and hinge problems followed almost immediately. Samsung has now posted an advert about it.
The video, published on Instagram, shows a green apple being sliced up and an attempt made to fold the pieces — a joke at the expense of Apple’s entry into a market Samsung has had largely to itself. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is then brought into shot. The video ends on a line about being years ahead in foldables.
The numbers in the advert
Samsung claims the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is 1.6mm thinner and 53g lighter than the iPhone Duo.
On the comparison shown: the Galaxy Z Fold 8 weighs 201g against the iPhone Duo’s 254g. Folded, the Samsung device is 9.7mm thick against 11.3mm for the Apple phone.
The problem it is pointing at
Videos showing damage and cracking on the iPhone Duo’s inner folding display have spread on social media, with many users identifying trouble near the central hinge.
Apple has acknowledged that a small number of iPhone Duo units have a problem, and confirmed that affected customers will be able to get a replacement device through AppleCare.
Why Samsung is this confident
Experience, mostly. Samsung launched the first Galaxy Fold in 2019 and has dominated the category since; it is now promoting its eighth generation of the device.
It is worth remembering how that first generation went. The original Galaxy Fold had its own well-documented screen failures before launch, and Samsung delayed it to fix them. A hinge that survives being opened thousands of times is genuinely difficult engineering, and the company making jokes today learned that the same way.
For buyers the practical reading is simple enough: a first-generation folding phone from any manufacturer is a first-generation folding phone, and the warranty terms matter more than the launch reviews.
What the weight difference is actually made of
Fifty-three grams is a lot in a phone, and it is not an accident of materials. A folding handset has to carry two display halves, a hinge assembly rated for tens of thousands of cycles, and usually a split battery, all inside a chassis that has to stay rigid when open and fold flat when closed.
Every gram saved is a decision about how much protection to put around the fold, and a first-generation device has no field data to make that decision with. Eight generations of returns tell you where the stress actually lands. That is the asset Samsung is advertising, and it is not one Apple can buy.
What to do if you are buying one
Ignore the launch-week verdicts in either direction. A hinge problem shows up over months of opening and closing, not in a review written in a fortnight, and a crack that appears in week six is the one that matters.
So read the replacement terms before the specifications. Apple has said affected customers can get a replacement through AppleCare; what matters is how long that cover runs and what it costs where you are buying. For grey-market imports into Bangladesh, international warranty cover on a folding display is the single thing worth confirming in writing before paying, because the repair is not one a local shop can improvise.
