Will be interesting to see what these look like in an Apple Store after a few months of people handling them. Seeing the creases and crunchy-feeling hinges on well-used Samsung Fold display models has always been enough to put me off wanting one.
This has been a solved issue in modern foldables already. I live on a beach with Fold 6 and while I'm quite careful not to drop it I never had the sand stuck there for prolonged time. If there are any particles that crunch they do seem to disappear after a few folds which makes sense as metal is harder than sand. The inner screen has a soft protector you can replace at Samsung center for 15$ and 30 minutes of wait making the screen basically new.
The contents of sand tend to be substantially harder than metal.
Honestly it works. I've never been tempted by foldable phones, but this version piques my interest.
In particular being able to do "dual screen" or large screen. Then add the behind screen facetime camera. Suddenly it goes from "eh" to "oh". Small tweaks perhaps but it changes how i view the form factor.
For example, I bet Apple is not splitting the video signal and feeding it from both sides, which means that if your screen "fails funny" you get a dead left panel.
Zero-radius folds are rarely a good idea
But regarding the dead left panel, you will have _no_ panel because if the panel fails, all of the inside screen will be affected, since it's one unit.