Is it generally fair to expect a new high-end smartphone to be perfect in every way? Absolutely not. But when said device starts at an obscene $1,400 with a paltry 128 gigs of internal storage space, it’s definitely not unfair to expect a certain degree of excellence across the board and a shorter than average list of flaws and weak points.

Hairline cracks and gaping holes

While it’s obviously impossible to verify all these claims, we also don’t believe everyone is lying when denying the destruction could have been caused by a drop or anything else objectively justifying this type of damage. There’s also a worrying number of people saying the camera glass cracked while they had their phones “protected” by expensive cases without anything out of the ordinary happening to explain or foreshadow the mysterious incidents.

In case you’re wondering, the first such incidents were reported more than a month ago, but although their number seems to have steadily risen since then, we’d still not consider this a very widespread issue.

Samsung isn’t taking the blame and repairs can be costly

While we can definitely understand that, it’s still disappointing to see multiple “product experts” on Samsung’s official community webpages rushing to label the situation as “cosmetic damage”, which of course is not covered by the company’s standard warranty. There’s rarely this much smoke without at least a spark of an underlying vulnerability, and it would be nice to see Samsung investigate a few of these reports before prompting users to pay out of pocket for repairs reaching $400 and even more in many countries.

The good news is you can drastically reduce that cost to $100 if you’re a Samsung Premium Care member, but the bad news is fixing the problem might take some time due to many stores and repair centers being closed to help contain the coronavirus pandemic.