Yes, the iPhone Duo has a crease. In week 1, though, most Korean owner complaints were about other things.
The Duo went on sale in Korea on October 23, 2026. On October 27 I collected 27 owner posts from Naver, Korea’s main portal, and sorted them by topic. I don’t own one. I handled a demo unit twice at the Apple Store in Gangnam.
What Korean buyers say below comes from those Naver posts, not from my own experience.
On this page
- Does the iPhone Duo have a crease? What 27 Korean owners said
- Can you see or feel the crease? Two Apple Store sessions in Gangnam
- iPhone Duo problems beyond the crease: bugs, bubbles, heat
- What happens if the inner screen fails? Exchanges and repair cost
- iPhone Duo price in Korea: Apple vs Danawa vs carriers
- Should you buy the iPhone Duo now or wait? Why I’m holding off
- How I counted the Korean posts
- FAQ
Does the iPhone Duo have a crease? What 27 Korean owners said
Yes. Of 27 Korean owner posts from the first days after the October 23 launch, 5 mention seeing or feeling the crease. Seven report mostly no problems. The rest focus on software bugs, inner-screen defects, and heat.
Apple’s own FAQ, as quoted by MacRumors on September 9, calls the inner display “flat and smooth.” The owners who mention it describe it as subtle, not absent.
| Topic (one post can count twice) | Posts of 27 |
|---|---|
| Mostly satisfied, no problems | 7 |
| Crease visible or felt | 5 |
| Software bugs (touch, UI, alerts) | 5 |
| Inner-screen defects | 4 |
| Exchange, refund, service | 4 |
| Heat, charging limits | 3 |
| Hinge worries or dents | 2 |
| Nano-texture looks dull | 2 |
| Speaker, weight, fingerprint | 3 |
One owner says the crease is “easier to see than you’d expect.” Another says you feel it under the finger more than you see it.
Crease posts are a minority. The satisfied group is larger, and two of those owners praise the nano-texture inner screen.
Can you see or feel the crease? Two Apple Store sessions in Gangnam
Face-on, I couldn’t see it. Tilted past about 40 to 50 degrees, the fold line appeared, and past 60 degrees light clearly split along it. I could also feel a slight ridge under my finger.
I visited twice: about 30 minutes on the evening of October 23, and about 20 minutes on Saturday, October 25. The angles are by eye, not measured with a protractor.
Within 30 degrees it was almost invisible. A dark or switched-off screen showed the line most clearly. A white PDF page hid it much better at the same angle.
I’ve only handled a Galaxy Z Fold in stores, a few times. On that Fold, I could see the fold face-on and my finger caught on it. The Duo’s crease was clearly the milder of the two to me.
I tried to photograph the crease. At that angle the ceiling lights washed the screen out, and without the glare the line didn’t show on camera. I deleted the shot.
Articles list the Duo at 254g. Closed, it felt only slightly heavier than my iPhone 18 Pro. On my second visit I read a PDF one-handed with it unfolded for five minutes, and my wrist tired first.
Does the crease get worse over time?
Nobody knows yet for this model. In a folding test by Tim Pan, reported by Pocket Tactics, the crease became visible from about 500 folds, and the test ran to 11,500.
I haven’t set a date, but I plan to recount Korean posts around the three-month mark, with the same queries and the same criteria.
iPhone Duo problems beyond the crease: bugs, bubbles, heat
Beyond the crease, Korean owners mostly report touch, UI, and notification bugs (5 posts). Others report bubbles or a failed inner screen (4) and heat (3), in one case enough to stop overnight charging.
One owner says the touch screen stopped responding and the UI glitched until a power restart. Another found bubbles under the inner screen after turning the phone off.
A third claims a thermometer read above 43°C while just playing YouTube. That is the owner’s claim, not a test.
Late notifications and a “film-like” feel on the inner screen come up too. On the nano-texture finish, Korean posts split 2 to 2. Two call it dull. Two love it, one for Apple Pencil use.
Hinge posts are early worries rather than failures. One owner warns others to be careful with the hinge.
What happens if the inner screen fails? Exchanges and repair cost
Apple hasn’t published an out-of-warranty inner-screen price for the Duo. SBS Biz (Korean) reported on October 16 about ₩1.65 million for the inner display and about ₩2.47 million for other damage.
That is a news figure, not an Apple price list.
Korean posts show both outcomes. One owner got a replacement after a failure. Another post, secondhand, describes an exchange being refused for a defect. A third owner is still deciding whether to exchange over a hinge issue.
On AppleCare+, I only found the standard iPhone table. It lists a ₩120,000 deductible for inner display damage. I couldn’t find a Duo-specific table, so coverage terms are not confirmed.
iPhone Duo price in Korea: Apple vs Danawa vs carriers
The Korea release date was October 23, 2026. As of October 27, 2026, Apple Korea sells the Duo from ₩3,290,000 (256GB) to ₩5,090,000 (2TB).
The cheapest unlocked 256GB on Danawa that day was ₩3,999,990, above Apple’s price.
| Storage | Apple Korea | Danawa unlocked (lowest) |
|---|---|---|
| 256GB | ₩3,290,000 | ₩3,999,990 |
| 512GB | ₩3,590,000 | ₩4,399,990 |
| 1TB | ₩4,190,000 | ₩4,190,000 |
| 2TB | ₩5,090,000 | ₩5,999,990 |
Both colors, Star White and Night Sky, cost the same at Apple. Danawa is a Korean price-comparison site, and these are listed prices, not my purchases.
Only 1TB matched Apple’s price on Danawa. A direct-import 256GB was listed at ₩3,303,500. Carrier prices for 256GB, paid in full with conditional device discounts, ran about ₩2.64 million to ₩2.80 million.
Naver’s keyword tool shows about 552,900 monthly searches for “아이폰듀오” (iPhone Duo) as of October 27.
I’ll recheck these prices on Apple Korea’s store when I recount posts, and keep the old values with their dates.
Should you buy the iPhone Duo now or wait? Why I’m holding off
I’m holding off, mainly because of the reported repair cost and the 7.6-inch inner screen. After two store visits, I think the crease and weight are acceptable. I wouldn’t recommend the Duo yet to anyone who drops phones often.
My first visit changed on the second. On October 23 I noted that one-handed reading seemed fine. On October 25, five minutes with a PDF changed that. Now I assume two hands or a stand for long reading.
If you drop your phone or carry it without a case, the repair cost is the biggest risk. A cracked iPhone 18 Pro is a different order of magnitude. For that reader, I’d point to the regular 18 Pro for now.
On crease vs Fold 8: one Korean owner who used a Fold 8 for three months and a Duo for three days posted a mostly positive take on the Duo. My own comparison is with a Galaxy Z Fold I handled in stores, and the Duo’s crease was milder.
For the same kind of Korean owner tally on the non-folding model, see my iPhone 18 Pro Korea reports.
How I counted the Korean posts
I ran 9 Naver queries on October 27, 2026, covering crease, defects, battery, heat, hinge, real use, and price. That returned 271 cafe and Q&A posts after removing duplicate links.
I kept only posts where an owner described something on their own phone. Sales posts, news summaries, reposted videos, and pre-purchase questions were dropped. That left 27.
Topics come from search snippets, not full reads. Naver’s API doesn’t return post dates for cafe posts, so the exact dates are unconfirmed.
FAQ
Where do Korean owners post about iPhone Duo problems?
Mostly in Naver Cafe communities, especially the large iPhone cafe, plus Naver’s Q&A service. Those threads play the role Reddit plays for English-speaking buyers.
Is the iPhone Duo crease visible in photos?
Not in my attempt. Under store lights, the angle that showed the crease also washed out the screen, so the line didn’t come through on camera.
Sources
- Here’s What Apple Says About the iPhone Duo’s Crease, MacRumors, Sep 9, 2026: Apple’s FAQ wording “flat and smooth”
- iPhone Duo crease, Pocket Tactics, 2026: Tim Pan’s 11,500-fold test, crease visible from about 500 folds
- SBS Biz (Korean), Oct 16, 2026: reported inner-display and other-damage repair costs
- Buy iPhone Duo (Korean), Apple Korea, checked Oct 27, 2026: Korean list prices and colors
- Danawa (Korean price-comparison site) search results, checked Oct 27, 2026: unlocked, direct-import, and carrier listing prices
- Naver searches (Oct 27, 2026; 9 queries) and Naver keyword tool monthly volumes: 27 owner posts tallied, linked inline