CNET loaded Apple’s iPhone Duo into its Fold-a-Phone machine on Friday afternoon, starting a durability test that will push the new foldable through 900 open-and-close cycles an hour. The goal is simple: see how long Apple’s hinge and two screens can take before they give way.
The phone went into the lab after CNET waited more than three hours at the Apple store and bought one in Louisville, Kentucky on Friday. That makes the test more than a lab exercise; it is an early public check on Apple’s first foldable at the moment buyers are beginning to ask how much wear the device can really take.
Abrar Al-Heeti’s review framed the phone in those same terms, laying out both the appeal and the compromises of Apple’s foldable debut. CNET is also lining the iPhone Duo up against Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 in the same machine, a comparison that matters because Apple’s move into the foldable market trails Samsung by seven years, with the first Galaxy Fold going on sale in the US in September 2019.
That is why the number CNET is chasing carries weight. The lab says most current foldable phones are rated for 200,00 folds, but Apple has not publicly shared any foldable lifespan claim for the iPhone Duo, leaving the test to stand in for the benchmark buyers never got from the company.
The unanswered question is how the iPhone Duo will hold up under that pace. CNET plans to keep watching the phone as it opens and closes, and it will host an iPhone Duo livestream on YouTube on Monday from 1-5 p.m. ET, when viewers can see whether Apple’s hinge keeps moving or starts to fail.
