Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Durability Test – Fake Folding Glass?!
Samsung
just released a newfolding
phone with a bolt claim that it has revolutionary flexibleglass
like it says here on their website we'll be putting that to thetest
today this is theSamsung
Zflip
or theflip
s depending on how you open the box it does come with a case one for each half of the phone kind of niceSamsung
says this is a statement smartphone for people who want to stand out a phone that demands attention and I'd have to agree the ability to fold your phone in half isgenuinely crazy and by crazy I mean crazy awesome we can now have a full sized phone and a compact design that takes up half the space the future is amazing it's time for a
durability
test
let's go I mean let's get started starting off pay very close attention to this first warning and remember it it says avoid pressing hard on the screen or the front camera lens tap the screen lightly to keep it safeSamsung
said at their launch event that they've done the impossible andcreated ultra-thin
glass
that folds thisglass
can be folded over 200,000 timesSamsung
said when you fold it you're not just bendingglass
you're bending the laws of physics but that warning included on the phone isn't as confidence inducing asSamsung
's launch event attempted to be it does feel nice though this type of fold is definitely my favorite so far I like having a phone that folds instead of having a tablet that folds there are two things I noticed right off the batwith the Z
flip
one is the crease here still along the center not a big deal there's also a small divot in the display above the front-facing camera lens you can see the curve of my lights along with the bend of the surface of that display theSamsung
logo along the spine gets entirely covered up when the phone is open this new hinge design apparently has thin brushes inside to keep out dust we'lltest
that later there's also no screen lifting off the frame like we saw on theMotorola RAZR which probably makes this design much safer and more long-term there is a bit of a gap between the two halves of the phone when it's closed also fine and it makes sense because if the screen really is
glass
we can't haveglass
clacking againstglass
every time the phone gets closed that just wouldn't end well speaking of things not ending well it's time to see if this material really isglass
or not I've been doing the samedurability
test
on every major newsmartphone since the
galaxy
s6 came out five years ago it is an expensive hobby yes but I think it's fairly useful in finding out what your phone is made from and how well it'll handle everyday life plastic as we know scratches at level two or three realglass
would scratch it a five or six and sapphire would scratch at an eight or nine right under diamonds which are level ten as my first most pick touches the display of thegalaxy
Zflip
we can see marks start to appear this is ratherunfortunate continuing onward we can see deeper grooves happening at a level three this is exactly how a plastic screen would react exactly like we saw in the
Galaxy
fold the Motorola RAZR and basically every other plastic screen smartphone ever made for kicks and giggles we can bump it up to a level four and I could physically feel the tip of the pic start to cut the display surface open so why in the world wouldSamsung
talk about flexibleglass
so much on their website and at the launch of itit could be that they are using a hybrid plastic polymer with little specks of
glass
ingredients inside and then just you know calling aglass
but that doesn't really seem like a very nice thing to be doing if a company saysglass
their customers will think of a hard clear material that has excellent scratch resistance from adurability
perspective that scratch resistance is the primary reason thatglass
is used on basically every smartphone displaySamsung
is calling thisglass
but thisdisplay clearly doesn't have the scratch resistance or structural benefits that customers are expecting from
glass
ifglass
isn'tglass
then truth doesn't matter and truth should matter this isn't American politicsSamsung
is currently the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world and we shouldn't be calling this screenglass
when clearly my fingernail is leaving marks on the surface over and over I'm not sure whatSamsung
's thinking over there but we clearlyhave scratches at levels two three four and fingernail I don't know what material this is but
Samsung
definitely shouldn't be calling itglass
and I'm disappointed even if I jump up here to the front facing ten megapixel selfie camera the surface is covered in that same so-calledglass
material and can still be scratched with my fingernail I'll come back to this again in just a second the raised screen bump around the edge of the screen is made from plastic this is the same thingwe saw in the
Galaxy
fold this guy kind of holds the screen in place and keeps people from peeling off the top layer the volume rocker is made from metal the recessed power button here on the side is stretchable I'll set my finger print and see if it still works don't mind my thumb by the way I smashed it with a TV a few weeks ago now the phone is still able to be unlocked even though the fingerprint scanner is damaged but totest
it some more I added some more scratches and after theadditional scratches are in place my fingerprints stopped working interesting the frame of the
galaxy
zflip
is made from metal and down here along the bottom you have more metal alongside the singular loudspeaker the USBC port and you know the no headphone jack the whole frame of the phone seems to be made from metal which is a good thing and will hopefully keep the phone together during the bintest
later there are a few plastic antenna lines and a removable SIM card tray but no expandablememory the center hinge mechanism is made from metal which that
Samsung
logo recessed into the spine each of the tiny letters is made from a piece of shiny foil that is glued inside the cavity these will probably never fall out on their own but it's interesting to see what the Zflip
is made from the rear panels are made fromglass
both the top and the bottom sections this mirror purple is kind of growing on me it gradually switches between purple and blue depending on how the light isshining on it there are two cameras on the back a 12 megapixel ultra wide-angle camera and they 12 megapixel normal camera both covered in real scratch resistant
glass
I think the fingerprints are getting a bit out of hand though thanks to our channel sponsored D brand for hooking me up with the limited edition robot camo each of these fingerprint fighting skins are totally unique no two phones will be the same and the individual drawings are super intricate and are currently available for everyphone that D brand covers not just the
galaxy
Zflip
I got one added to the back of the grip case for my note 10 plus since the grip case has the cutout for skins and can be swapped out whenever kind of fun I'll leave a link down in the description if you want to pick up some robot camo or a case for your own phone one cool thing about the folds is that has the world's tiniest viewfinder for selfie taking I can double click the power button and it lets me see myself and take a cutelittle pic thumbs up for that will perform the world's smallest scratch
test
on it and moving up through Mohs scale of hardness we can see that pics 1 through 5 don't leave any marks like we would expect we only see scratches starting at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7 which is the scratch resistance we expect from anything with the wordglass
in the name anything that scratches earlier should not be calledglass
even if the Zflip
displayed does hypothetically haveglass
ingredients in it we shouldn't be calling it
glass
unless it has the properties ofglass
I can't go make a pile of mud sprinkle in some chocolate chips and then call my mudda cookie just because it has some of the ingredients of a cookie that shouldn't be allowed but then display lasted about 15 seconds under the heat from my lighter when I pulled the flame away there were burn marks still left on the screen and it did not recover one really interesting thing though if you watchagain is that you can physically see the screen change shape as the heat from my lighter heats it up plastic of course is affected by the temperature of my lighter
glass
however would not be physically affected in the same way as the surface cools down the shape of the screen returns to normal let's start with the slam shuttest
you know if you get a little aggressive with hanging up on someone after a phone call and you smash the phone closed we got to see if the phone survives it does havethe physical raised bumpers all along the outer edge of the screen those bumpers are absorbing most of the slamming force and the screen is still in one piece of course the phone is meant to fold inwards
Samsung
said it was survived 200 thousand times which is a hundred eighty two times a day and if you plan on keeping your phone for three years bending back the opposite direction though is a different story with the first flex we get a small separation of the frame near the antenna line and thetop half bumper started coming loose but the screen of the Z
flip
is still entirely intact and in one piece they still shuts and opens with no grinding of the hinge we'll try it again you can see the back panels of the phone meet in the center providing more support to keep the phone from bending backwards and the phone hinge does a really good job of keeping the phone shape for the most part only on our third bin did we finally hear a snap from the frame near that power button and even thenthe so-called
glass
screen of the Zflip
is still intactfolding
screens are pretty resilient even though the phone doesn't really shut quite right anymore it's physically withstanding quite a bit more abuse than I initially thought it could only now after all its previous bins and cracks does the back panel shatter it's only a cosmetic wound since the display is still working just fine and this is good to know all the important things are still functional you might be asking heyJerry what if there is a super thin layer of
glass
on top of the display if that were true we would start to see fractures and cracks from that nano layer but instead we only see the tip of my most pics cutting into the plastic like we would see with any piece of plastic that gets cut the screen is in no way scratch resistant whatsoever and if poked hard enough the pixels will still get damaged it does survive my bintest
however and everything is still functional this is certainly the mostdurable
folding
phone we've seen yetSamsung
did say that they designed this new hinge with little tiny fibers inside or little brushes to keep out dust and dirt from thefolding
bits it'll be awesome to see what this looks like from the inside during the teardown so make sure you're subscribed to that after pouring my rocks on the screen and making sure they cover the entire phone just like it would if you dropped it when you accidentally go outside initially I could hear a fewlittle complaints of the dust inside the hinge but after blowing all the dust off those complaints mostly went away this new hinge design might actually be the start to something really good but the real danger of calling something
glass
means that people will think they have the protection ofglass
when that clearly is not the caseglass
distributes pressure along the whole phone while this plastic allows that pressure to get in and damage pixels you can see that each pressure point for mypick kills the line of pixels directly above it this would not happen if the screen were
glass
and it's dangerous to let people walk around with that false sense of security likeSamsung
gives them when they call itglass
and that's not all each of these puncture wounds does let air get inside the sealed OLED layers which kills even more pixels a puncture or cut in the plastic screen is a cancer that will eventually spread across the whole display yeah I sound a bit apocalyptic butit's important to know what your phone is capable of and what might damage it so remember the
Samsung
Zflip
does not have a trueglass
screen and it's still very fragile that being said it's also still pretty awesomeSamsung
should just correct their verbage let me know what you think ofSamsung
's verbage down in the comments if you enjoyed thisdurability
test
come check out my last video we monitored a wheelchair to go on a safari in Africa it turned out pretty cool coming outwith me on Instagram and Twitter and thanks a ton for watching I'll see you around