You don't need to baby a modern foldable, but a few boring habits can keep its hinge from becoming an expensive problem.

I've found that the durability of a foldable can be extremely unpredictable. I used my Galaxy Z Fold4 for almost three years, and it went through a lot of rough handling. My mom's Z Fold6 broke after about a year, with the inner display failing. Debris around the hinge may have been a factor, but the cause was never determined.

That's why I wouldn't take a manufacturer's fold-count rating as a "use-by" date. Modern hinges are engineered to last for years of normal use, while Google says the Pixel 10 Pro Fold's gearless hinge can handle over 10 years of folding. The idea isn't to ration every unfold, but to avoid making an already complex piece of hardware work harder than necessary.

Maintaining a foldable hinge comes down to some fairly mundane practices. Keep grit away from it, make sure nothing is sitting between the displays before closing the phone and don't force the mechanism in a direction it clearly doesn't want to go.

Samsung advises that you clear away any foreign objects before closing its foldables, and to not apply too much pressure to the inner display. That's especially worth keeping in mind with phones like the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Z Flip8, which have IP48 ratings. The "4" indicates protection against solid foreign objects 1mm or larger, but it does not make the phones dustproof. A beach trip isn't a good time to discover how much grit your hinge can take.

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