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Consumer Report’s Phone Flipper

Screenshot: Consumer Reports / TikTok
Screenshot: Consumer Reports / TikTok

Consumer Reports (where I used to work) takes its product reviews very seriously. When Samsung released a folding phone earlier this year, the publication built a robot to put its hinge to the test. It’s basically an arm that just sat there and flipped the phone open, and closed, and open, and closed, over and over—30,000 times, in fact.

Imagine a world where your entire reason for being was to flip open a phone. There must be more to life. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 passed the test, but at what cost to robot wellbeing?