recent teardown by [iFixit] going over the reasons for this<\/a>.<\/p>\nAs test subject we got a Galaxy Z Fold 8, as an example of a modern-day foldable smartphone-tablet hybrid. This phone has an IP48 rating, meaning that it\u2019s water-resistant, but not dust-resistant for particles smaller than 1 mm. To test this, [iFixit] used UV-reactive dust particles, making sure that they got literally everywhere inside the phone\u2019s hinge mechanism.<\/p>\n
After this treatment, trying to fold the phone caused the hinge mechanism to make absolutely horrific crunching noises, confirming that it\u2019s reached dust-under-butterfly-keycap levels of unusable. During the subsequent teardown a quick pass with the UV lamp showed that not much of the dust had penetrated into the two halves of the device at least, but the hinge mechanism wasn\u2019t as lucky.<\/p>\n
Getting to the hinge is sadly rather destructive, as it involves removing the flexible OLED. Once the hinge was exposed and subjected to UV light the spectacle was something to marvel at, as can be seen in the above screenshot. With the dust caking literally every part of the mechanism, it was little wonder that the hinge had ceased to work.<\/p>\n
Although this was obviously an extreme case of dust exposure, and the average flexible OLED screen\u2019s hinge won\u2019t see nearly as much dust, one can\u2019t help but feel slightly disconcerted at that crunching noise, knowing that it\u2019s just one big dust exposure away.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much like Apple\u2019s once vaunted super-slim butterfly keyboard, today\u2019s range of portable devices featuring flexible OLED displays \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/folding_phone_dust_hinge_ifixit_youtube.jpg\")
The foldable phone after a dusty encounter. (Credit: iFixit, YouTube)<\/p>\n