iFixit showed the shocking damage dust can do to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 — and the iPhone Ultra needs to solve this

iFixit opened up Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold 8 foldable phone
It found the device’s hinge was vulnerable to dust and sand particles
Apple’s upcoming iPhone Ultra might be similarly susceptible

If you’re considering getting the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 — or any of the best foldable phones, for that matter — you might want to check out iFixit’s teardown of Samsung’s flashy new device. Because it looks like the foldable has a fatal weakness that could swiftly ruin your expensive investment, if you're not careful.

The handy folks at iFixit noticed that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has an ingress rating of IP48, meaning it can resist water but not smaller dust particles. With that in mind, iFixit decided to give the foldable a light sprinkling of sand, complemented by UV-reactive dust that showed where the particles ended up — and how they affected Samsung’s phone.

The results were not pretty. With the dust in place, iFixit said that the phone’s hinge “started making truly awful crunching and grinding noises, and the phone stopped opening normally.” That’s a pretty disastrous result — after all, most phones will encounter dust particles on a very regular basis.

Although Samsung says the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has an IP48 rating, this only protects against particles 1mm in size or larger. Yet that might not be enough for ordinary usage, as the everyday sand iFixit used in its testing featured particles measuring 0.16mm. As we saw from the results, it doesn’t offer much in the way of defense.

The problem is that the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s hinge contains a lot of moving mechanical parts, all of which provide an opportunity for small particles to “cause trouble,” in iFixit’s words. While Samsung’s internal seals did a good job of keeping dust out of the batteries and main electronic components, they couldn’t ensure the safety of the hinge. And without this component, a foldable phone loses its entire raison d’être.

A warning for the iPhone Ultra

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 teardown isn’t just interesting for Samsung fans — because Apple’s long-awaited iPhone Ultra is expected to take on a similar form factor, it could provide a few hints (and warnings) about what might arrive at the Cupertino firm’s upcoming September launch event.

And it’s not like dust ingress is something Apple will automatically be immune to. As iFixit put it, Samsung’s device “still has one enormous liability: it folds.” It’s near-impossible to keep dust away from a phone in everyday use, and since folding is the entire point of the iPhone Ultra, it could well be beset by similar problems, unless Apple has an ingenious solution.

A clue to the iPhone Ultra's ruggedness will be in its specs, or more specifically its IP (Ingress Protection) rating. This tells you how well it repels dust and dirt — on the scale from zero to six, iFixit says the Galaxy Z Fold 8 only scores four.

Ultimately, we won’t find out if Apple has found a way to beat this score until the company launches its iPhone Ultra, which is expected to land this September. But considering it’s Apple’s first foray into the foldables market, the stakes are already high.

Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.