Oh dear. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. In fact, in 10 years of performing durability tests on smartphones, Zack Nelson of popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything had never had a phone explode on him. Until now.
Nelson was subjecting Google’s recently released Pixel 10 Pro Fold to the same robust testing experienced by numerous other phones that have landed in his hands over the years.
The YouTuber’s durability test includes everything from scratching and scraping to burning and bending. And it was the bending where it all went wrong.
First up, Nelson was disappointed to find that despite Google describing the new Pixel 10 Pro Fold as “extremely durable,” the handset crumbled pretty easily when he bent it backwards. It didn’t snap along the phone’s hinge as you might have expected, but instead gave way along the antenna line — in the exact same place where it broke during his tests of the two Pixel Fold phones that went before.
“Having the audacity to call the Pixel 10 Pro Fold ‘extremely durable’ during their launch event while not changing the antenna line locations from the previous two versions that catastrophically failed is an insult to tech enthusiasts everywhere,” Nelson said, adding, “For sure, hype up the phone, but don’t lie about it being durable if you didn’t change anything to make it more durable … this is by far the weakest folding phone I’ve ever tested.”
But then, in a first for Nelson’s durability tests, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s battery suddenly fizzed and went up in smoke.
“For sure, this is definitely an extreme test, but I’ve also subjected every mainstream smartphone made in the past 10 years to these exact same tests,” Nelson commented as smoke filled his workshop. “Just something to think about. Don’t put an open Pixel 10 Pro Fold in your back pocket or your buns could get toasted.”
The YouTuber finished up by saying that if Google ever makes a successor to its foldable, “they should relocate the antenna lines near the hinge … or not. Either way, I’ll be here next year to keep them in check.”
Want to see a foldable stand up to Nelson’s bend test? Then check out his encounter with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 earlier this year.
