The FoldBot was back to put Moto's latest foldable phone to the test, but after 27,000 cycles, we had to pull the plug.
When I first caught wind of a new Motorola Razr on the horizon, one of my initial reactions was, "We've got to put it in the FoldBot!" The foldable Razr is now on sale, though some people have begun receiving preorders early. Starting at 12 p.m. PT Thursday, CNET began streaming what we hoped would be a 12-plus hour live show to find out if the phone could hold up to being folded 100,000 times. Note that we used a Razr we purchased ourselves.
VIDEO The goal was to stream the test until the wee hours of Friday morning when we planned to hit 100,000 folds. However, as soon as the test started, we noticed the FoldBot was having some trouble closing the phone all the way each time. During our 4 o'clock check-in, I noticed the hinge was very stiff and resistant to being closed all the way, almost as if something had come loose and was blocking it. However, after flexing the hinge a few times by hand, it started to loosen up some. It was definitely not functioning as intended, but still usable.
I tried putting the Razr back into the FoldBot one more time, but the machine was unable to overcome the stiffness of the hinge, and wouldn't fold the phone anymore. So, with around 27,000 folds on the counter, we stopped the test and called it a day.
Just like when we tested the Samsung Galaxy Fold, we borrowed the FoldBot machine from SquareTrade, a San Francisco-based company that offers warranties for consumer electronics and appliances. The FoldBot was originally created to open and close the Galaxy Fold repeatedly, thousands of times over.
During our test of the Galaxy Fold, it survived almost 120,000 folds before it started exhibiting damage.
SquareTrade has modified the FoldBot to accommodate the Razr, and it's been gracious enough to let us borrow it again, even before the company gets to test the Razr itself. As it turns out, the company may need to tweak its design a bit, but hopefully, our test will provide good data for it.
Though the Galaxy Fold was derided by some, I'm a fan of its quirky design and was hugely impressed with its durability during our test. Being a former owner of the original Razr (mine was hot pink), I was definitely looking forward to trying out the new one in person. And now that I have, I'm pretty impressed with the design and functionality.
You can
head over to YouTube , to see all the full Razr folding test.
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