One of the biggest smartphone launches of the year took place on Tuesday, and popular YouTuber Zack Nelson — he of JerryRigEverything — wasted no time in subjecting the new Nothing Phone 2 to one of his trademark durability tests.
Now, Nelson usually accompanies his torture-test videos with a dryly delivered though often amusing commentary, but on this occasion, he decided that, being the Nothing phone an’ all that, he’d say absolutely nothing and let the visuals do the talking instead.
For those unfamiliar with the YouTuber’s testing procedure, put simply, he performs the kind of unspeakable acts on new phones that no one should ever dream of carrying out themselves. Indeed, he does it so you don’t have to.
And while smartphones in the real world will almost certainly never face the kind of stress that Nelson puts them through (after all, who’s going to accidentally hold a naked flame to their phone’s screen for 30 seconds?), his enthusiastically delivered tests do give you a clear sense of just how durable a device is.
You can check out Nelson’s efforts with the Nothing Phone 2 in the video below:
As you can see, the Nothing Phone 2 holds up pretty well to Nelson’s various antics, which include scratching, scraping, burning, and, always the tense part of his videos, bending. Yes, some phones snap clean in two. The Nothing Phone 2 didn’t.
Perhaps the hardest part to watch is when Nelson drags the box cutter down the side of the Android phone’s aluminum frame, which, as you’d expect, cuts up pretty badly. On the plus side, a decent amount of scratching on the in-display fingerprint sensor (it also has face unlock) didn’t stop it from continuing to function as it should.
The bottom line is, the Nothing Phone 2 looks like a pretty solid piece of kit, earning it several thumbs-ups from Nelson throughout the video.
Preorders for the Nothing Phone 2 are live now, while regular sales start on Monday, July 17.
Want to find out more about the new Nothing Phone 2? Digital Trends has you covered.
