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| A Wall Street Journal reporter puts a sausage inside Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Fold smartphone. Captured from YouTube |
By Baek Byung-yeul
The Wall Street Journal's "mocking" review of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Fold smartphone has caused a controversy here as some internet users have criticized the U.S. newspaper for posting an "insensitive" video on YouTube.
Critics said Monday the paper's journalist should have offered a thorough and independent review of Samsung's latest smartphone in the video rather than focused on ridiculing it.
In February, Samsung unveiled its first foldable smartphone and the device is set to hit the U.S. market April 26, but the phone has been criticized by U.S. reviewers as the top layer of the display easily peels off, which can cause serious damage to the screen.
WSJ reporter Joanna Stern posted the video review of the Galaxy Fold, Friday (local time). In the three-minute video, the reporter put a sausage inside the screen of the smartphone, showed clips of peeling a banana and orange and folded a colored piece of paper.
The video has gone viral logging more than 570,000 hits as of 3 p.m. Monday, but has generated negative responses from some viewers, recording 22,000 thumbs-downs while having 10,000 thumbs-ups. More than 4,400 people left comments on the video, many expressing anger over mocking the device by putting a sausage and other objects inside the smartphone.
"I can't believe you were the person who was given a phone for review... but instead put a hot dog in it," a user with ID TotaMay said.
Another user wrote, "WSJ has generally been a loyal fan of Apple." No Wonder. A user with the ID "Bruno Godinho" wrote, "This review boils down to bad attitude and poor journalism."
An expert in the IT industry said the foldable smartphone has been criticized excessively, but the reporter didn't focus on the review itself.
"When writing product reviews, it is perfectly normal to make negative comments on drawbacks of the product because those critical reviews are really helpful for consumers who are about to make a purchase. However, those acts like putting a sausage inside the device is just to bring it up to ridicule," IT columnist Ham Young-min said.
Ham also pointed out the attempt to peel off the outer layer of the Galaxy Fold seemed almost intended.
"I have reviewed a slew of IT devices and I didn't try to peel something off on purpose when there is a warning message inside the manual or on the packaging box of the product. Well, it's okay to try everything with the product, but those attempts seemed intended to make a mockery of the smartphone," he said.
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| Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Fold foldable smartphones / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics |
In regard to the defective displays, Samsung said it has retrieved the Galaxy Fold samples and is inspecting them to examine the problem. But the firm said it hasn't changed the release date.
"We are inspecting these sample phones to check and determine the cause of the problems. We also postponed the scheduled media briefing sessions for the Galaxy Fold in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which were supposed to be held on April 23 and 24 respectively," the official said.
The firm said it will announce release dates for Korea and China after finishing the inspection of the samples.
