The Samsung Galaxy S7 has had a wildly successful debut, but there’s nothing like a 1,000 foot drop to bring you down to earth. Literally. Thanks to the crazy dudes over at Unlock River, we now know exactly how durable this latest Android masterpiece really is, and there’s video evidence to prove it.
In a new YouTube post that debuted on Saturday, Unlock River takes a brand new Galaxy S7 (they even go through the motions of taking it out of the box, removing its protective plastic covering, and powering it on for the first time just to make you further lament the destruction of a perfectly good piece of mobile hardware), attaches it to a drone, and drops it from 1,000 feet in the air. It’s unclear exactly what the team (or even we, when we watched the video for the first time) thought would happen, but here’s a hint: it’s not pretty.
Why did they do it? In the video, Unlock River notes that they’ve got a penchant for putting all your favorite hardware and gadgets to extreme tests — after all, if a phone can (somewhat) withstand plummeting nearly 0.4 miles from the air, it can probably hold up to anything you put it through.
That said, despite the impressive specs of the S7, which has been heralded as the best new phone on the market (until perhaps Monday’s Apple event), there’s nothing in the world that can really prepare a smartphone for the abuse the Unlock River team subjected this particular S7 to. Not even covering the front and back of the phone in damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass. Nor adding a metal rim in between these two panes to protect the phone from impact. Because really, no one at Samsung could’ve possibly imagined that impact of this magnitude was something that needed to be protected against.
So how did the S7 ultimately hold up? Well, while the phone was initially described as “completely destroyed,” that actually wasn’t quite the case. Sure, the screen shattered beyond belief, but the aluminum frame actually protected the phone (to some extent), taking most of the impact. And more impressive still, the phone itself still worked. It was capable of powering on, vibrating, and even transmitting sound. The only thing that was truly damaged, the Unlock River team notes, was the screen.
The Galaxy S7 was awarded an extreme durability score of a 6.5, not bad all things considered, so while you probably shouldn’t be dropping your new smartphone from extreme heights, rest assured that this guy can take quite the beating.
Verizon — Galaxy S7 Verizon — Galaxy S7 Edge
AT&T — Galaxy S7 AT&T — Galaxy S7 Edge
T-Mobile — Galaxy S7 T-Mobile — Galaxy S7 Edge
