This plastic layer is critical to the OLED’s survival, but it doesn’t stretch to the edges. Every company that builds these screens leaves a margin around the perimeter of the display where there is no plastic layer, just a raw, exposed OLED panel peeking out into the world.

Question: why?? If the OLED panel is that fragile, and it is known that dust will be collecting in those little grooves where there is no plastic layer, and smashed in when the phone folds shut… Why not make the plastic layer go to the edge? Is there some sort of technical reason? Could the plastic layer not like go under a top bezel which reinforces it? Would that hamper our quest for “the thinnest phone imaginable” (I literally do not care if my phone is a few millimeters thicker)?

I want a foldable phone. I want a durable foldable phone that has enough battery life to get me through the day. That’s all I ask.