OnePlus 10 Pro Snaps in Half in Durability Test (theverge.com) 111
An anonymous reader shares a report: The OnePlus 10 Pro is out in China, and while it has some flagship specs, including a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and a 5,000mAh battery, it turns out it might not be the most durable phone on the market. YouTuber Zack Nelson, creator of the popular JerryRigEverything channel, put the OnePlus 10 Pro through his usual durability test, and when he pushed on the middle of the phone to try and bend it, it snapped nearly in half. See for yourself -- the bend test for the portion of the video starts at 6:57. When Nelson first pushes on the OnePlus 10 Pro, the back glass begins to crack, and many of the cracks appear under the phone's stovetop-like camera bump. When he pushes again, those cracks turn into a full-on break, causing the top part of the phone to begin to fold over.
Why are phones so thin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not make them a little chunkier (and we're only talking a few millimeters) so they can have a more sturdy frame and more internal space for things like battery, earjack, camera? You'd think OnePlus would know better than to just ape Samsung and Apple down to every last terrible, self-serving, consumer hostile design choice but apparently that's what they're doing.
Re:Why are phones so thin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, it's probably because they're sexy in the shop plus I think more than 15 years ago there was a war on getting the phones as small as possible. And after the first phablet shrinking the display size wasn't an option anymore (on the contrary) so they were left spec-fighting just for the thickness.
I was actually shocked to see how thin and light my 4 years old phone (S9+) was when took it out from the case :-) . Also before they started to wrap their phones in glass I would never feel the need to have a case and I've had enough phones dropped on concrete, on the stairs, etc. Now you can break them from a 15cm drop over the desk if you fumble with them (which is pretty easy giving that they're more slippery than a fish).
Sometimes I feel like I'd do something bad to all the youtube people who are like "oh, it isn't glass so it isn't premium" WTF already half of it it's glass, why would you put glass on the other side?
Some manufacturer needs to have the guts to walk this back and make the phones more functional. Make them thicker, put a bigger battery, maybe make it even removable as they start now to guarantee here in there 5 years of updates ... how good would a battery be in 5 years after being charged probably at least daily (and yes, you can have a removable battery AND a waterproof phone)?
Re: Why are phones so thin? (Score:2)
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My phone is 24mm thick, and has no glass on the outside. Two removable batteries. And the 3.5 jack, of course. No walled garden, no google spyware.
I wish it was thinner, but that's because the keyboard is modular rather than built-in.
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Some manufacturer needs to have the guts to walk this back and make the phones more functional. Make them thicker, put a bigger battery, maybe make it even removable as they start now to guarantee here in there 5 years of updates ... how good would a battery be in 5 years after being charged probably at least daily (and yes, you can have a removable battery AND a waterproof phone)?
How uncouth! What unseemly bulge is that in your pocket? Completely unacceptable in polite company.
At least you aren’t suggesting an actual external antenna that would boost the range substantially, flipping that up in public should get you on some kind of offender registry.
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I have a Moto E2 from years ago that is in nearly every way superior to my current Samsung, for my needs, except speed. The display color is more accurate, and the display is brighter. The display has a better anti-fingerprint coating. It doesn't need a case. The rear is a nice rubber that is the perfect level of grippiness. The phone fits in one hand and can be operated by one hand. The touch detection is not nearly as inconsistent or finicky. The number of different interfaces (click here, no there,
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But that's not how it's always been. When I think back to the times where "feature phones" that fit your pocket were relatively new, a major factor for putting it into some kind of case was to protect it from all the dust that accumulates in pockets.
Of course that raises the questions why manufacturers apparently have not caught on to the trend in general. There's even a lot of money in it, wher
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Those phones were lighter, and the screen bezels were large enough (and the screen was plastic rather than glass) that there wasn't any real risk of damaging the screen if you dropped it on a corner.
Re: Why are phones so thin? (Score:1)
Apple - fashion (Score:3)
Apple/Jobs started the thin as possible nonsense , who knows why. Its the other dimensions that matter as far as pocketability go. No one ever said "This 5x3 inch phone won't fit in my pocket , hey Steve, shave a few mm off its thickness then I'm sure it'll fit!"
Its just moronic fashion that all the other phone manufacturers have followed like sheep. Though in the case of this phone its probably a chinese home market model - usually but to lower quality not just in phones but a lot of other consumer items p
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I don't agree with you. I have enough junk to carry around, and so appreciate small devices.
This said, brighter, larger, and more discernible screens, good audio, nice screen touch, all of these things have value, too.
OneTouch's design staff have deep embarrassment to overcome, not to mention a sullied reputation. I own one of their designs, and it's been a great phone. I won't buy another until I'm assured they don't fold in half, as I stress my phone's physics a lot. As these are largely waterproof phones
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Mine are in various states of disrepair, or could not be upgraded.
I care about upgrades because everyone should.
I DO want to go to a Linux Phone as soon as they're truly viable, which is not today. Maybe soon.
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Apple/Jobs started the thin as possible nonsense
No, that's always been a thing. Ever since the brick phones, manufacturers have been trying to make them shorter, lighter, and thinner. The Moto K Razer was sort of the peak of what feature phones did in terms of thinness.
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He should have been worrying more about cell phones giving him cancer than about phones creating wrinkles in his jeans.
Unless he was carrying his cellphone up his ass, that really doesn't seem relevant to his condition.
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Given all of the other shit Steve Jobs believed in, it's honestly surprising that he didn't believe cell phone radiation causes cancer. He believed showing every day is bad for your health, and yelled at a waiter once because the waiter gave him butter which he believed causes cancer. When he first found out he had liver cancer, he refused surgery to remove the tumor (and being the liver, the removed tissue would have grown back healthy again, unlike tumor removal in other organs) and went to go see a natur
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While it's true that thicker does not necessarily mean more rigid, in the universe we live in, thinner virtually always means less rigid than it could possibly be using the same materials and design principles. To make this not true, you'd have to come up with some contrived scenarios that wouldn't make it feasible in the first place.
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In many cases rugged phones have bad display (or at least much worse than the "premium" "premium"). A display usable in bright daylight should be a must for a rugged phone - yet, many of them don't have them. ...).
As such, people will actually buy a device that is usable in daylight, which is a "feature" which is used so much more than the "drop resistance" and can't be improved (with a case, with extra care,
I bought a phone with a glass back and no case, as in my history of some 8 years of ownership of "no
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Thicker doesn't necessarily mean more rigid / less prone to bend damage. Rugged phones are readily available, but at a premium price, as they sell much less.
All else equal the formula for bending increases rigidity and strength to the cube of the thickness, and because in bending you apply the maximum stress at the outermost fiber it becomes a squared relationship meaning twice as thick is four times as strong/stiff, three times thicker is nine times stronger/stiffer all else being equal. Even 40% thicker is twice as strong/stiff. So thickness actually matters quite a bit.
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I’m asking for some friends in the phone designing business who really wish they had a job where they were respected more.
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Re: Why are phones so thin? (Score:3)
Agree wholeheartedly. They should bring back slider physical 5 row keyboards as well. And trackball. Would fit perfectly near the camera bump. And flatten the phone.
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I had a phone with a trackball. The HTC Hero. It wasn't as useful as you might think.
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Probably better than the directional keys (up, down, left, right) on early phones, or even the "diagonal presses on the single directional button kinda work". /. were loving, but I found it much less usable than the (bad) trackpads of the day. Probably lack of training and not good enough hand coordination.
Yet, hard to see how it could be better (on a phone) than a touchscreen.
I remember the IBM Thinkpad style "mouse joystick" some people on
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Blackberry Curve, too. Took no time for it to become gunked up. Fortunately they were fairly simple to replace if cleaning couldn't fix it.
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Somehow, that was never an issue on my T-Mobile G1. Trackball never failed.
The Kensington Expert Mouse large trackball on my desktop isn't sealed and does need cleaning, unfortunately.
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I loved the trackball on my T-Mobile G1. As well as the slide-out keyboard, removable battery, SD card slot, and landscape mode which was much better for reading than portrait. Wish someone could make a 5G version of that with a larger and high resolution screen.
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Would love having the feature back for use of emulators in my pocket.
That said I admit it won't really offer much over touch, even typing. Phones are a plan B for everything including written communication. Either you're futzing with virtual keyboards or you're an obvious oral scribbler with messages that say Bone Apple Teeth.
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Typing is horrible on virtual keyboards. Pretty much impossible for me. Whereas I could write long email / posts with a slideout keyboards.
Touch screens have turned smartphones into read-only devices, as far as I'm concerned. Input devices are the limiting factor. It's useless having a supercomputer in your pocket that you can't properly control in the name of it saving a few millimeters. Especially when you have to use a case and enlarge the phone anyway.
The T-Mobile G1 was solid. It would never have bent
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I love my new keyboard back-cover for my Pinephone. Sure, it triples the thickness, but it also sports an extra battery. Most importantly, it gets rid of the damn on-screen-keyboard chewing up half of my display.
With the clamshell design, it's a little awkward to talk on. I wish they'd gone with a slider design, but that would cost more, and be hard to retrofit onto existing hardware.
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No. Virtual keyboards are terrible. I will never get used to them.
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what was the point of making them so thin in the first place? Is that something people even want, or is it what manufacturers think they want?
Yes.
Thin phones are a status symbol.
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I'm in favour of phone cases. As well as letting you choose the one you want (hard, rubber, with a lanyard loop or not etc.) they can be sacrificial. If the case gets damaged they are cheap to replace, unlike the phone body.
What is pointless is things like having a glass back, such as the one that shattered in the video. Glass backs are slippery so you at least want a skin on them, just to increase friction.
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Some time ago, I met a girl that slept with the phone in a pocket.
It had one of those cases with fluorescent spots.
The pressure basically transferred some of that fluorescent liquid onto her skin, leaving (at least semi-permanent) dark spots.
Some phone cases have zero safety thought into them.
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Some time ago, I met a girl that slept with the phone in a pocket.
She was hiding something and was terrified that someone would look at her phone or that an incriminating text would come while she was sleeping.
Wow, this phone is so sleek and stylish! (Score:2)
Re: Why are phones so thin? (Score:2)
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"So then what was the point of making them so thin in the first place?"
So you could stack two phones in the pocket where only a normal phone would fit?
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LOL, no, the screens got bigger because people wanted bigger screens, that's just it. This is why you got all these designs with thin to no margins, with the screen going over the edge, notches and then punch holes, just for the sake of getting a bigger and bigger display. If they needed the space to fit all the "inside" of the phone while giving a small screen "when everyone wanted a smaller screen" they could j
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>just for the sake of marketing and headlining a bigger and bigger display
WTB one-handed phone, PST
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they could just make a screen that's half or even less of the side of the phone
Uh what? That's a terrible idea. A phone with huge bezels doesn't increase usability at all since it still limits the reach of your thumb. You need the whole thing to get smaller in your hand. Bezels are getting smaller because it looks better and you get more screen real estate given the existing width of the phone (might as well).
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Well you were the one saying "everyone wanted a smaller screen to use" when you actually meant "the whole thing to get smaller in your hand". Still, it isn't what people want, I mean they'd like to have it smaller when kept in their pants (hence the foldables) or maybe when just used as a phone to dial numbers or to just talk on the phone normally but we're talking here SMARTphones. If they could fit them well in the pocket we'd have 8 inch or 10 inch screens easily. Heck, Samsung's latest tablet S8 Ultra i
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They're thin because it's actually cheaper to build.
In other news: Making the existing frame "bigger", filling empty space with molded plastic, is more expensive than the engineering and assembly nightmares involved with making things as small and thin as possible. I (like you, I assume) have zero experience in the realm of cell phone engineering or manufacturing, but I do have some experience in the electronics manufacturing area. The cost of design, manufacture, and assembly increases drastically the smaller you get. Modern phones are thin for nothing m
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The cost of design, manufacture, and assembly increases drastically the smaller you get. Modern phones are thin for nothing more than aesthetic reasons.
Smaller in width or height? The chips are naturally wide and thin since transistors can't be placed on top of each other and you need space for routing internally. The boards are naturally wide and thin because chips are thin and can't be placed on top of each other (plus you need space for routing and heat dissipation etc). OLED and TF screens are naturally thin as well (this is just baked into the technology itself). Phones are just thin because all of the components are already thin. The only component t
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Smaller in width or height?
Smaller components, packed closer together. Also, "wide" and "thin" are relative terms. What's easier to design, manufacture and implement? A 5mm x 5mm chip that's 2mm thick or a 5x5 chip that's .5mm thick?
The only component that benefits from thickness is the camera
The only? What about the largest internal component, by both volume and surface area? (The battery.) How much simpler and cheaper would it be to design the rest of the phone if the battery was twice as thick and half the surface area? Leaving all that room to space out your components? Also, the ass
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What's easier to design, manufacture and implement? A 5mm x 5mm chip that's 2mm thick or a 5x5 chip that's .5mm thick?
As an electrical engineer working in IC design I can tell you it makes zero difference to the designers. We don't get a choice of height. It doesn't matter. All that matters is horizontal area (percentage of the wafer) and power (mostly for heat dissipation). You can pack the transistors tightly or sparsely, doesn't matter, the fab only bills by the wafer (and mask set).
The only? What about the largest internal component, by both volume and surface area? (The battery.) How much simpler and cheaper would it be to design the rest of the phone if the battery was twice as thick and half the surface area?
It would probably be more complicated and expensive since you now need more added structural rigidity over the PCB and extra heat dissipati
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They're thin because it's actually cheaper to build. If it were thicker you'd have to have a thicker battery (more cost) or artificial rigidity in the hollow areas.
I'm going to keep beating this dead horse: smartphones should not have batteries at all. The batteries should be in the phone case, which is quick and easy to switch.
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Re: Why are phones so thin? (Score:1)
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> The first thing people do is buy a protective case because they are so flimsy and fragile. So then what was the point of making them so thin in the first place? Is that something people even want, or is it what manufacturers think they want? Most phones are so thin the camera unit doesn't even fit properly and sticks out anyway ruining the entire aesthetic.
People make purchase decisions based on different consideration that day to day utility. A large part of whether people will 'buy' a phone depends h
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One more positive interpretation is you can think of cases as a user-selectable customization and personalization!
I use a case, more with an eye out for scratches than for bending (which I've never seen as a problem) but also because silicone rubber feels great in the hand - on a big phone its pleasingly like a flat hockey puck - plus it's bright yellow to make the phone easier to find, and with a few stickers too because I'm a dork.
So thin phones have been "bragging rights" for manufacturers, and I think m
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The point is so that if you don't care, the phone is thin. And if you do care, you have your choice of case.
If my phone were thicker, then adding a case—which I would do anyway—would make it much too bulky. I'm glad that the iPhone 11 that I own is thicker than the 6 or 6s, but I wouldn't want it much thicker. The 13 pro is a nice size, and definitely a bit chunky with a case on it.
The reality is that no matter how thick you make the phone, without a soft case, it's going to be damaged if you dr
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It's not supposed to make the phone more practical, it's supposed to make the phone more *sellable*.
The feeling you get when you first pick up a phone will quickly fade with use due to habituation, but it is all important in the showroom. Some years back this sparked a thinness arms race; you'd pick up a phone and part of you was supposed to think, "Wow, this must be the thinnest phone I've ever held." That thinness had no actual *utility*, it was there purely to evoke the feeling that you were holding som
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The first thing people do is buy a protective case because they are so flimsy and fragile.
There's a huge difference between some cases. For example the one I have on my current phone is about 1mm thick, if that. It's slightly thinner than the camera poking out the back. It covers the bank and sides and a plastic/rubber compound that gives the case a slight cushion if I drop the phone. It also protects it from scratches.
The screen protector is the thinnest I could find that does similar for the glass. I'd prefer to replace a $10 screen protector or a $20 case than a chipped / scratched screen o
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For my phones, the case has more been about adding at least some protection against the phone dropping on the corner, as well as adding a lip so that it can be placed on its face and not risk being scratched by a granite counter. They're usually under $10 and they accomplish both jobs pretty well.
The only alternative would be for the manufacturer to not build the display all the way out to the edge, and add a lip built in, but most consumers don't find this aesthetically pleasing. So for them, bare phone, f
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The first thing people do is buy a protective case because they are so flimsy and fragile. So then what was the point of making them so thin in the first place? Is that something people even want, or is it what manufacturers think they want?
Well you see the world's most popular phone is actually the Cat S62 rugged phone, but people just pretend to actually use their thin devices while having a deep preference for something big and bulky.
Fortunately Cat sells a phone case that makes their thick arse rugged phone thin and sleek for those few people who prefer such a thing.
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The first thing people do is buy a protective case because they are so flimsy and fragile. So then what was the point of making them so thin in the first place?
I have always assumed that is the idea. If you want a thin phone, they pretty much all are. If you want a ruggedized phone, there is no shortage of case designs, from simple silicone sleeves that let you customize the look while retaining the slimness, to mil-spec stuff that is tough but adds considerable bulk.
Anyway, I think my point is if you prefer to trade reduced size for durability, there is no shortage of options. It does not work the other way around though, you can't make a bulky phone smalle
Re:Duh. What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really care how they do it, but if you can do that with your hands easily then it's going to get smooshed in a pocket pretty easily. A phone that can't easily stand up to being kept in trouser pockets isn't really up to the task.
And it's not up to me to concern myself about the details of manufacture (I mean I do because I'm a nerd), if the phone is too flimsy for day to day use it doesn't really matter why.
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I would expect it to work like any other phone which doesn't break under the same test conditions.
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My first thought when I watched this clip was that he was putting a TON of force on that phone
Don't be silly. Human thumbs are incredibly weak compared to butt-cheeks, chairs and tight jeans. But you don't even need to watch any of his other videos. He says so right in his video that even thin frosted glass phones survive this test without cracking, let alone snapping in half.
But if you don't trust what he says then maybe consider actually watching his videos rather than talking about your silly expectations:
https://youtu.be/d3EfFBRAYQQ?t... [youtu.be] Pixel 6
https://youtu.be/4aKk7tve_gk?t... [youtu.be] Mi 11
You can look
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The Pixel 6 (possibly Pro) didn't break. I don't know about others though.
He's testing phones to destruction. He uses a cigarette lighter on the screen. He scratches them with both box cutters and some kind of hardening measuring bolts (if it's scratched by tool no. 5 then its hardness is lower than 65 HRC. If it's scratched by tool no. 6 its hardness is lower than 67 HRC). He cuts into the plastic parts. He's using the tip of box cutters against the camera lenses.
Once he's done, any phone is basically garb
Foldable (Score:5, Funny)
causing the top part of the phone to begin to fold over.
I thought foldable phones were fashionable these days?
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They are. Even this channel has reviewed only 2 phones this year, the Oppo Find N and the OnePlus 10 Pro. Both are evidently foldable.
No, it do not snap in half. (Score:2)
It bends quite a bit and the plastic casing crackles.
It is a flimsy phone, but that's nothing special these days. ...
I don't get any phone for which there is no durable rugged case and no protective glass available - which I both buy before putting the phone to use.
The market could use more rugged phones with large replaceable batteries.
Re: No, it do not snap in half. (Score:4, Funny)
You didn't watch for long enough, did you? You describe the first part of the bending test. It snaps when the guy starts bending in the other direction.
Now that I've pointed out someone is wrong on the internet, I can finally work in peace! =)
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Design engineers need to reinforce areas prone to increased loads. This phone has a natural focal point for bending stress, where the battery and camera assembly meet. It's not exactly in the middle, but it's close enough to warrant serious attention. And then eating into the support on one end with a button and on the other end with the antenna is just asking for trouble. Those locations should have contained some extremely rigid, strong support members. Titanium or magnesium reinforcements would prob
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I'd much rather they left most of the durability stuff to a replacable case. Some manufacturers include a case in the box.
That way if the case gets damaged I can just buy a new one for a few bucks, no repair needed. Throw in a glass screen protector and I've not once had to have a phone repaired, only replace the case or the screen protector.
Of course the phone itself needs to not bend, but generally speaking I think phones are reasonably durable with a case on them. The much bigger issue (for me) is not be
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Sure, but I don't think the rigidity of phones is generally a problem. We are talking about this one because it's an exception, most phones don't deform or crack that way.
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We are talking about this one because it's an exception, most phones don't deform or crack that way.
If by phones we are counting working existing phones, the longer time goes on the more true this becomes.
Re: No, it do not snap in half. (Score:2)
Sure but most cases I know aren't designed to prevent bending so much as provide cushioning and screen protection from scratching. You'd need one that has a metal support up the edge, which sounds expensive and seems like it should already be inside the phone anyway.
If I'm choosing between a phone that absolutely needs a strong case for its very survival, vs one that is would merely benefit from a any case, I'm going with the latter and buying a nice strong case anyway.
In my 10 years owning smartphones I ha
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I'd bet close to 100% of phone case protections are from getting dropped and landing on a corner. And landing on the face is especially bad, and difficult to protect against, but is much more dangerous to the phone. Has anyone done a study on how consumers tend to damage their phones?
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You clearly stopped watching at 7:34
Your post contains 62 words.
Given what happens at in the video at 7:46 you would have to be able to type at 310 words per minute in order for you to have spent less time making your objectively incorrect post waste less time then simply getting to the point of the video where the phone snaps in half?
Can you type 310 words per minute, or do you feel a bit silly?
Snapdragon phone (Score:1)
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Silly people (Score:2)
old joke (Score:2)
"Doctor, it hurts when I go like this!"
"Then don't go like that."
Reputable mftrs should perform flexural tests (Score:2)
https://www.vox.com/2014/9/25/11631290/inside-apples-secret-testing-labs-where-phones-are-bent-all-day-long
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Some great commentary (Score:2)
The commentary in the video is great.
After it breaks in half and the only thing working is the flash:
"This flash does appear to be rather exceptional"
Taking off bits of the now fragmented back panel:
"Removing the back panel is easier now that we aren't worried about it breaking"
Assessing why it snapped:
"You know, I'm not a structural engineer, but it appears to me that the lack of structure is what contributed to the rapid unplanned disassembly"
Warning - Not suitable for hipster jeans (Score:2)
Just slap a sticker on the box with that warning and you are good to go.
I like thin phones (Score:2)
Not so thin that they snap while using them mind you, but thin anyway.
If I don't have room for a thin phone in my life, and I don't actually, then I get to plan what it will look like by choosing a case. So I get the durability, I get the size I can live with, and I get to customize my phone.
If you can have a thin phone, it's much nicer to carry.
If you find you're breaking phones all the time, then you either need more case or more damage protection plan (or both — I got both.) These days a cheap phon
Now that's a "scratch at 7"! (Score:2)
And one heck of a deeper groove at 8!
Finally! (Score:2)
A phone that lets you send a message. Nothing says "quit yakking and pay for your coffee so the rest of us can get to work" like snapping someone's phone in half with your bare hands.
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The iPhone is made in China too.
Re:Made in China quality. Awesome. Fuck you, OnePl (Score:4, Informative)
You may also recall that the iPhone 6 had "bendgate", where it was quickly discovered that it would get bent just from being in a pocket.
What's surprising is that OnePlus didn't learn from Apple's mistake and include a bending test in the qualification process for any new phones they made.
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"While the sensible people stuck to small, thick phones."
Within limits, I want the largest screen I could possibly get. I don't care about phone thickness (assuming it's a reasonable 10mm or less), I don't care much about the weight (assuming it's not a half kilo).
I am OK with a lower (but sensible) battery life. Gone are the days of Nokia's low end 14-18 days battery life (though with only 4 or so hours of talk time). My current smartphone lasts close enough to a day with significant use, and close to thre