CNET's hinge torture test has taken the iPhone Duo past 451,000 folds, and the first sign of age is a looser hinge, not a broken screen.
The test has run as a livestream for three weeks. CNET said the hinge began to feel looser at 390,000 folds. By about 440,300, the mechanism had shifted enough that the screen no longer opened fully before the folding machine closed it again, and the distinctive snap was gone. The phone now stops five to 10 degrees short of fully open, though it can be opened the rest of the way by hand. CNET said the device is still operational, holds other screen positions, and shows no cracking or other failure.
That distinction matters. The hinge is losing its feel and its reach, but nothing has yet stopped the phone from working. CNET has set its own endpoints: loss of power, sensors failing to detect the screen properly, or screen blackout. Until one of those happens, the Duo is worn, not dead.
Apple has not shared any internal hinge results or a fold-lifespan estimate, so an outside test is the only data point for now. The OLED panels come from Samsung Display, whose screen in the Galaxy Z Fold7 passed a certified third-party test of 500,000 folds. Apple probably is not using an off-the-shelf Samsung panel, but the Duo's display is on track to match that mark. So far, then, the hinge is the part showing its age while the screen holds up.
At 100 folds a day, 450,000 folds works out to more than a decade of use, which is a useful yardstick even if few people will fold a phone that often. The livestream runs weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pacific. The open question is which of CNET's failure conditions arrives first, and whether the Duo clears the Fold7's 500,000 mark before it does.