Apple iPhone 6s Is Tougher Than Samsung's Note5, Torture Tests Reveal

It appears the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus really are made of tougher stuff. The results of torture tests by extended warranty specialists SquareTrade, released this morning, bear out most of Apple’s claims that its new handsets are hardier than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models released a year ago.

In head-to-head tests against a Samsung Galaxy Note5, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus proved more resistant to drops and harder to bend. They did not, however, fare so well when it came to withstanding extremes of heat and cold.

(SquareTrade/YouTube)

As it always does whenever Apple or Samsung releases a new phone, SquareTrade Labs dispatched its minions to acquire some — in this case, camping out all night outside the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco.

Their purpose: to stress these new handsets to the breaking point, to identify how and when these extremely sophisticated pocket computers will fail, and identify which phone makers do a better job of preventing gadget tragedy.

This year, Yahoo Tech was on hand to witness some of the tests, performed in a sweltering photography studio in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighbourhood.

Bend there, done that

Remember that bending problem with the iPhone 6s Plus last year, which Apple brushed aside as no big deal? Some people reported that putting the 5.5-inch handset into their back pockets and then sitting down caused the large model to develop a permanent bend (hence the nickname “Bendgate”).

Leaving aside for a moment why anyone would be that stupid, Bendgate did bruise Apple’s reputation for engineering excellence — and inspired SquareTrade to invent a new torture test machine to find out how much pressure was required to cause a permanent crimp in a handset’s case.

The Bendbot works by applying pressure to the middle of the screen, increasing the pressure by 10 pounds per square inch each time, causing the handset to visibly flex. A sensor detects whether the phone returns to its normal shape.

In tests conducted by SquareTrade last spring, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus developed a permanent bend after 110 pounds of pressure was applied. This year, however, the Apple handsets fared much better. Both the 4.7-inch 6s and the 5.5-inch 6s Plus now withstood up to 170 and 190 pounds, respectively. That’s slightly better than the Note5, which also proved much more rugged in this year’s tests than its sibling, the Samsung Galaxy S6.

Then, apparently just for fun, SquareTrade Lab’s inquisitors allowed the machine to maintain the pressure until each phone buckled and its screen shattered, sending bits of plastic and glass skittering across the studio floor.

It’s actually kind of painful to watch:

(Yahoo Tech/YouTube)

The iPhone 6s suffered catastrophic failure after 226 pounds of pressure was applied, the 6s Plus died at 239 pounds, and the Note5 buckled forever under 203. Trust us — you don’t want to try this at home.

The harder they fall

At the iPhone 6s unveiling earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook lauded the new phones’ ionized glass screens; the company claims it’s “the strongest cover glass used on any smartphone in the world.”

(A stronger screen was one of the most common requests when we surveyed New Yorkers as to what feature they wanted most in a new iPhone.)

That’s why drop tests are a huge part of SquareTrade Lab’s semiannual ritual. First, testers placed each handset at an angle on a metal plates on either side of a 6-foot-tall tower. As communications director Jessica Hoffman flipped a switch, a red LED on the tower counted down from 10, then the plates were released. The phones plummeted to the floor and landed with shocking violence.

SquareTrade ran each phone through this gauntlet 10 times, then repeated the tests with the phones face down.

The iPhones suffered only cosmetic damage from both types of drop. But when dropped face down on the coated cement floor of the photography studio, the Samsung Note5’s LED display was cracked from top to bottom.

Still, SquareTrade’s torture testers weren’t satisfied; the floor in the studio was perhaps a bit soft, they decided. So they repeated the tests outside. That did it: None of the phones survived a faceplant on the unforgiving pavement of San Francisco’s streets.

As Hoffman notes, “No amount of ionized glass can save your phone from a face-down drop on the sidewalk.”

Still, Apple’s screens proved more resilient than Samsung’s. (We expect the South Korean electronics giant to file a rebuttal, as it did last spring to SquareTrade’s bend tests.)

Hot and cold running phones

As it has in the past, SquareTrade immersed each handset in 4 inches of water for 10 seconds while running a video, to see if any failed to operate underwater. The iPhones lost audio for a few seconds, but otherwise all three mobiles emerged from their swim unscathed.

For the first time this year, Square Trade performed temperature extremity tests – putting the handsets in an oven set to 110 degrees fahrenheit and a freezer set to 0. They initiated a Skype call to keep the screens from going into power-saving mode. They then placed a thermal-imaging camera inside with each phone and filmed them, watching for the screen to go dark, indicating a system shutdown.

The phones did far worse in heat than cold. All handsets failed after approximately 15 minutes in 110-degree heat. But in the cold, the Samsung Note5 far outdistanced both iPhones, running for nearly two hours at zero degrees. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus lasted 30 minutes and a little more than 60 minutes, respectively.

Bottom line: If you’re traveling to Antarctica and hoping to check your email from the South Pole, bring a Samsung. And if you’re visiting Death Valley, well, try not to leave the car.

What is the point, exactly?

If you’re reading this, you probably own a smartphone or are thinking of getting one. And if you do, you’re almost guaranteed to do something stupid with it – drop it in the toilet, launch it across the pavement, or sit on it. It’s just a matter of time.

That’s why it’s a smart idea to have an extended warranty that covers accidental damage — either from its manufacturer, your wireless carrier, or a third party like SquareTrade — that minimize the cost of repairs, which can approach half the price of a new phone if you have to replace the screen.

But it also helps to have a phone that’s tough from the get-go, to reduce the number of times you have to send it in for emergency surgery. As SquareTrade’s latest tests show, the top handsets are getting increasingly rugged. But they’re still far from unbreakable.