Visible difference: screen border and sticker

Open the iPhone Duo, look at the internal screen, you will see that the distance from the edge of the display area to the outside black border is very small, I estimate about 0.8mm, and most importantly, it is even: running around all four sides keeping the same distance. The Apple sticker covering the screen also fits right at the edge of the display area. Moving to Z Fold8, the distance from the display area to the border is larger and uneven: some are slightly skewed, some are slightly concave. The Fold8's screen protector also runs along the edge of the display area but does not match like Apple's, sometimes protruding, sometimes indented.

The internal screens of the two devices are placed side by side.

Close-up of the screen border: the evenness of the border space is the most visible detail.

There's one thing I'm still wondering: why don't companies that make folding phones, including Apple, Samsung or OPPO, let the top layer of film overflow completely to the edge, below the border around the screen? I think it will look better that way. But in current conditions, every device has stickers, and Apple is the company with the best, most even, and tightest stickers. This is the clearest detail that shows Apple's more detailed processing, and this is not only in the iPhone Duo but Apple has been doing it since very old iPhone generations.

First reason: legacy from Steve Jobs and Jony Ive

Back in the days of iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6 or iPhone X, try to remember how perfect phones from Samsung or its competitors were at that time. Apple intentionally makes products carefully from day one, rather than waiting for technology to develop and the company to get rich before starting to do well. Many other companies set goals like "now that we're not big or rich, we'll just do mediocre, grow up and do better". Those two ways of thinking are completely different. Jonny Ive and Steve Jobs are the two people who shape high-quality, exquisitely finished products for Apple

Doing it carefully requires a lot of things, and most of it comes from the decision maker: they must have high aesthetic requirements and must be willing to spend more money for it. Example close to me: Khac Ten's leather goods, especially those with stitching. Normally, leather workers use chisels to manually punch thread holes, but at Khac Ten, we draw thread holes and cutting lines on the computer and then punch them with a laser. Thanks to that, the distance from the thread hole to the edge of the product is 100% even, sewing the thread evenly. That reflects the desire to perfect the product, and it costs more money because it requires more investment in technology, monitoring and maintaining quality.

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Even pitch and distance to the edge require more expensive and more difficult work. 4-word SEN wallet with name engraved.

Second reason: premium positioning

Apple has always positioned its products as high-end and sold at high prices, so they have to do well to match that segment. You often find yourself criticizing Apple for using aluminum for expensive devices, what I mean is: if you sell at an expensive price, you have to make it good, but if you remove steel or titanium to make it out of aluminum like a normal phone, I don't accept it. But that's a matter of materials, here I'm only talking about finishing. Even devices like the iPhone 17 or 18 Pro Max, even though I don't like the aluminum material, the finish is still very good. iPhone Duo sells at a high price so it maintains that perfect quality.

Sony: same tray as Apple

I always rate Sony as a company that makes products very carefully. First, like Apple, they position the high-end line as truly high-end, selling expensively and making high-quality products. Second, Sony's high-end hardware lines have been around for a long time, since the 1970s. I have been in contact with Sony since the 1990s and 2000s, and all of their high-end lines are very well finished, not only smartphones but also music players and headphones. Anyone who has ever owned a tiny Sony MiniDisc will understand, it's great. There's one item I haven't been able to buy yet: a MiniDisc machine from the Sony Qualia line, CNC machined monolithic aluminum shell, released around 2004. At that time, companies still made technology items from pieces of plastic put together. It took a few years for Apple to make a steel frame on the iPhone 4 and then an aluminum frame on the iPhone 5. Sony had already made it beautiful before that.

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Third is the Japanese personality. Coming to Japan, you will see that Tokyo is a super crowded city, yet every corner is clean and tidy, while many other crowded cities in the world are messy. I've been to Sony headquarters, and from the outside I can see that everything is straight, neat, and clear. That comes from the nature of Sony as well as the Japanese.

Japan is a country that demands perfection in everything.

I took a photo in front of the Sony sign in front of their headquarters in Tokyo.

What about other brands?

Think about it: Who is the CEO of Samsung's phone segment, who is OPPO's, who is the chief designer, the person who decides on the small details? Most of them I don't know, because big companies like that are more business oriented than product oriented. Samsung is a business company, and I also like that: they win in every situation because strategy is what they think about first, product is second. In my opinion, Koreans are not famous for taking care of every detail. China used to be associated with the image of cheap, mediocre quality goods; Now their phones are much better than what we knew in the past, but still not at Apple's level. In terms of aesthetics, I think they tend to be more flashy than meticulous and simple, but the simpler they are, the more perfect they are.

must be better.