If the teardown of a phone by iFixit doesn’t do it for your phone destruction interests, then YouTube channel Jerry Rig Everything should be next on your list. The channel has gotten access to the Pixel 3 XL and performed some scratch tests, addressing some of the concerns on the new all-glass back.
The Jerry Rig Everything use a range of tools based on materials from the Mohs scale of mineral hardness to test the durability of phones glass, and body to find out how durable they are.
The Pixel 3 survives fairly well on the front, with the Gorilla Glass 5 starting to show marks at level 6, with deeper more noticeable scratches appearing at level 7. The rear is a different story with keys and coins leaving marks, though a more ‘scientific’ rating shows marks appearing at level 3, while level 4 was showing quite deep scratches.
The video covers the sides of the phone, with a nicer coating applied to the aluminium frame at the side of the phone (as compared to the Pixel 2). The video also demonstrates that the volume rocker is made of plastic, while the power button is metal.
The video show’s a burn test on the screen, which shows that the Samsung panel is pretty decent at recovering from a 30-second flame being held to the screen. There’s also a bend test, which the Pixel 3 XL passes with flying colours, it bends, but returns to shape easily.
The takeaway from this video is that you want a case, or as the video suggests a skin, on the phone. Whether that’s one of the lovely to hold fabric cases from Google, a TPU case from AliExpress or something in between, otherwise your phone will be scratched eventually.
If you haven’t seen this video on the Pixel 3 and how it responds to keys being scraped all over its glass back then you need to watch it now: https://youtu.be/so4HSVnNZQo