Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Durability Test – Fake Folding Glass?!

Samsung has just launched a new foldable phone with the bold claim that it has revolutionary flexible

glass

. Just as it says on their website. We will try that today. This is Samsung's Z Flip or Flipz, depending on how you open the box. It comes with a case, one for each half of the phone. Pretty good actually. Samsung says this is a 'statement phone' for those who want to stand out. A phone that attracts attention. And I have to agree. The ability to bend your phone is pretty wild... and by wild, I mean freaking cool. Now we can get a full-size phone in a compact design that's half the size.

The future is fantastic. It's time for a

durability

test

. Let us begin. To begin with, you need to especially notice and remember the first warning. It says to avoid pressing hard on the screen or front camera lens. Gently touch the screen to keep it safe. Samsung said at the launch that it had done the impossible and created ultra-thin

glass

that can be folded. This glass can be folded more than 200,000 times. Samsung said that when you bend it, you bend not only the glass but also the laws of physics. But the warning on the phone doesn't inspire as much confidence as Samsung's launch tried to be.

Although it feels good. This type of

folding

is definitely my favorite so far. I'd rather have a phone that folds than a tablet that folds. There are two things I noticed right away with the Z Flip. The first is the crease here along the middle. It is not a big problem. There is also a small dent in the screen above the front camera lens. You can see the light curve along the curve of the screen surface. The Samsung logo along the spine is completely covered when the phone is open. This new hinge design apparently has little brushes on the inside to keep dust out.

We'll try that later. The screen also doesn't rise above the frame like we saw with the Motorola Razor, which probably makes this design much more secure and permanent. There is a small gap between the two halves of the phone when it is closed. Also is okay. And it makes sense because if the screen is really glass, we can't have glass banging against glass every time the phone is closed. It just wasn't going to end well. Speaking of things not ending well, it's time to see if this material is actually glass or not. I've run this exact

durability

test

on every major new smartphone since the Galaxy S6 came out 5 years ago.

It's an expensive hobby, yes, but I think it's pretty useful for figuring out what your phone is made of and how well it will handle everyday life. Plastic, as we know, scratches at level 2 or 3. Real glass scratches at level 5 or 6. And sapphire will scratch at level 8 or 9, just below diamonds which will be at level 10. When my As the first Mohs tool hits the Galaxy Z Flip screen, marks begin to appear. It's a bit unfortunate. Continuing further, we can see deeper grooves appearing at level 3. This is exactly how a plastic screen would react. Just like we've seen with the Galaxy Fold, Motorola Razor, and pretty much every other plastic-screen phone ever made.

For a bit of fun and fuss, we can ramp up to level 4, and here I could physically feel the tip of the tool start to cut into the surface of the screen. So why the hell would Samsung talk so much about flexible glass on its website and at launch? It could be that they use a hybrid plastic polymer with little glass elements inside and then, you know, call it glass. But it doesn't really turn out to be a particularly nice thing to do. If a company says "glass," its customers will think of a clear, hard material that has sublime scratch resistance.

From a durability perspective, that scratch resistance is the main reason glass is used for virtually every smartphone screen. Samsung calls this "glass," but the display clearly doesn't have the scratch resistance or structural benefits customers expect from glass. If glass is not glass, then truth means nothing. But the truth should matter. This is not US policy. Samsung is currently the world's leading smartphone maker, and we shouldn't call this display glass when my fingernail clearly marks the surface over and over again. I don't know what Samsung is thinking there, but we are clearly seeing scratches on level 2, 3, 4 and with the nails.

I don't know what material this is, but Samsung definitely shouldn't call it glass, and I'm disappointed. Even if I jump to the 10MP front selfie camera here, the surface is covered by a so-called glass material and can still be scratched with a fingernail. I'll come back to this again in a moment. The raised screen bulge along the edge of the screen is made of plastic. It's the same thing we saw with the Galaxy Fold. This type holds the screen in place and prevents people from peeling off the top layer. The volume button is made of metal.

The power button lowered here on the side may be scratched. I'll set my fingerprint and see if it still works. By the way, don't worry about my thumb; I broke it with a TV a few weeks ago. The phone can still be unlocked even if the fingerprint scanner is damaged. But to test it out a bit more I did a few more scratches. And after the extra scratches were made, my fingerprint didn't work anymore. Interesting. The frame of the Galaxy Z Flip is made of metal. And down here at the bottom you'll find even more metal along a speaker, the USB-C port, and, you know, the missing AUX jack.

The entire frame of the phone appears to be made of metal, which is a good thing and will hopefully hold the phone together during the drop test later on. There are a pair of plastic antenna bands and a removable SIM card holder. But there is no option for memory expansion. The central hinge mechanism is made of metal with the Samsung logo stamped on the spine. Each letter is made from a piece of shiny aluminum foil glued into the cavity. They'll likely never fall off on their own, but it's interesting to see what the Z Flip is made of.

The rear panels are made of glass, both the upper and lower sections. I'm starting to like this purple mirror. It gradually changes between purple and blue depending on the light that shines on it. There are two cameras on the back: a 12MP ultra-wide camera and a 12MP regular camera. Both are covered with highly scratch resistant glass. However, I think the fingerprints are getting a little out of hand. Thanks to our channel sponsor dbrand for giving me a limited edition Robot Camo. Each of these anti-fingerprint designs is totally unique. No two phones will be the same, and the individual drawings are highly detailed and are currently available for all phones dbrand covers, not just the Galaxy Z Flip.

I added one on the back of the grip cover for my Note 10 Plus. Since the grip cover has the cutout for it and can always be replaced. Kind of funny. I'll put a link in the description if you want to get some Robot Camo or a case for your phone. One cool thing about the Fold is that it has the smallest selfie preview in the world. I can double click the power button to see myself and take a nice picture. Congratulations on that. We will run the world's smallest scratch test on it. And if we move up the Mohs hardness scale, we see that tools 1-5 don't leave the marks we'd expect.

We only see scratches at level 6 with deeper grooves at level 7, which is the scratch resistance we'd expect from anything with the word "glass" in the name. Anything scratched before that should never be called "glass". Even if the Z Flip hypothetically contains glass ingredients, we shouldn't call it "glass" unless it has the properties of glass. I can't go out and make a bunch of mud, cover it in chocolate chips, and call my mud a cookie just because it has some of the ingredients of a cookie. That shouldn't be allowed. The slim screen lasted about 15 seconds under the heat of my lighter.

When I removed the flame again there were burn marks left on the screen and it did not recover. One very interesting thing though, if you look at it again, is that you can physically see the screen change shape as the flame in my lighter heats up. The plastic, of course, is affected by the temperature of my lighter. Glass, on the other hand, would not be physically affected in the same way. As the surface cools, the shape of the screen returns to normal. Let's start the clapping test together. You know if you got a little aggressive when you hang up after a phone call and break the phone.

We'll have to see if the phone survives. It has physically raised bezels along the outer edges of the screen. Those frames absorb most of the force and the screen is still intact. Naturally, the phone is designed to fold inwards. Samsung said it would survive 200,000 times, which is 182 times a day if you plan to use your phone for 3 years. Folding backwards, however, is another story. With the first pull, a small part of the frame separated from the antenna band and the top of the frame began to come loose. But the Z Flip's screen is still fully intact and in one piece.

It still closes and opens with no resistance from the hinge. We try again. You can see that the back of the phone is in the middle, which helps prevent the phone from bending backwards. And the phone's hinge does a good job of keeping the phone in its shape. Only after our third dollar did we finally hear a creak from the frame near the off button. And even then, the Z Flip's so-called glass display is still intact. Folding screens are reasonably strong. Even though the phone no longer closes properly, it still takes a lot of physical abuse, more than I first thought.

Only now, after all the previous buckling and buckling, does the back panel begin to crack. It's just cosmetic though, as the screen still works fine, and that's good to know. All the important stuff still works. You might ask, "Hey Jerry, what if there's a super thin layer of nanoglass on top of the screen?" If that were the case, we would start to see breaks and cracks in that nanolayer. But instead, we just see the tip of my Mohs tool cutting plastic like we would see any piece of plastic that has been cut. This screen is not scratch resistant.

And if you push it hard enough, it will still get damaged. However, it passes my dollar test. Everything still works. This is clearly the most durable foldable phone we've seen yet. Samsung said it designed the new hinge with tiny fibers on the inside, or tiny brushes, to keep dust and dirt off the

folding

parts. It will be great to see what it looks like on the inside during the dissection. So make sure you subscribe. After throwing rocks at the screen and making sure they cover the entire phone like they would if you dropped it when you accidentally move outside.

At first I could hear some small complaints about dust on the hinge. But after blowing off the dust, the complaints largely disappeared. This new hinge design could be the start of something really cool. But the real danger of calling something glass is that people think they'll get protection as glass, when that's clearly not the case. Glass distributes pressure throughout the phone, while plastic allows pressure to enter and damage the screen. You can see how each of my tool's pressure points kills the lines of pixels directly above them. That wouldn't happen if the screen was made of glass.

And it's dangerous to let people walk around with the false sense of protection that Samsung gives them when they call it glass. And that's not all. Each of these holes allows air to pass into the sealed OLED layers, destroying even more pixels. A puncture or scratch on the plastic screen is a disease that will eventually spread to the rest of the screen. Yes, it sounds a bit doomsday, but it's important to know what your phone can take and what could harm it. So keep in mind that Samsung's Z Flip doesn't have a real glass screen and it's still very fragile.

That being said, it's still great. Samsung should correct your choice of words. Please let me know what you think of Samsung's choice of words in the comments. If you enjoyed this durability test, check out my latest video. We fit a normal wheelchair for a safari in Africa. It ended up being great. Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. And thank you very much for looking. See you.