Zack Nelson of popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything has been at it again, subjecting yet another phone to the kind of durability test that will leave you wincing in horror.
The latest device to get the Nelson treatment is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the largest and most expensive iPhone that Apple started shipping last Friday.
After describing the brushed titanium and the etched back glass as “super cool,” Nelson takes his scratching tools to the Ceramic Shield of the 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Pro Max and discovers that the display holds up well overall.
Next Nelson grabs his trusty box cutter, which he uses to scrape away at the selfie camera (first wince). Protected by the Ceramic Shield, it appears to stand up well.
After that, the box cutter is enthusiastically dragged down the side of the iPhone 15 Pro Max (second wince), which, hardly surprisingly, takes off the blue physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating, revealing the titanium frame beneath.
Later, as is customary with Nelson’s durability tests, a naked flame is put right up against the new iPhone’s display. After a long burn, the display remains impressively intact.
So far, so good. But things go badly wrong for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, as during Nelson’s unscientific stress test in which he uses his fingers and thumbs to bend the device, the back glass shatters, seemingly without too much effort (big wince).
“Yeah, I’m going to be honest, I did not see that one coming,” Nelson says, noting that he’s been doing bend tests for the last 11 years and most phones do not break, adding: “iPhones especially do not break, like ever.”
He goes on: “That snap was abnormally quick. Kind of stunned,” before pondering whether it had to do with the grade 5 titanium frame having nearly three times more tensile strength than aluminum or half the elasticity.
Notably, when Nelson performs the same bend test on the 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro, the smaller device handles it just fine.
And just when you’re thinking that the iPhone 15 Pro Max has suffered enough, Nelson fires up a blow torch and directs it toward the mashed-up handset. Yes, it’s time to wince again.
