Popular YouTuber Zack Nelson 0f JerryRigEverything fame recently got his hands on the new iPhone 14, meaning only one thing: Time for a durability test.
In a video (below) posted on Monday, Nelson quickly sets to work, conducting his familiar scratch test on the iPhone 14’s Ceramic Shield, a toughened display that Apple launched with the iPhone 12 series in 2020.
After taking his tools to the iPhone 14’s display, we see “extremely faint” scratches at level 6 on the Mohs hardness scale, and more prominent scratches at level 7. We can take that as a decent enough result. “I do think Apple’s Ceramic Shield is an improvement over normal tempered glass,” Nelson concludes.
Next, a scraping exercise that’s almost certain to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It involves Nelson dragging a box-cutter blade down the side of the phone’s aluminum frame. No big surprises here, with the structural integrity of the frame holding up but much of the paint coming off. The process does, however, give Nelson a chance to highlight the fact that Apple now uses recycled aluminum in 59% of its products, “probably because it’s cheaper but also since it has 1/40th the carbon footprint of mined aluminum,” he says.
Moving on to the rear cameras’ lens covers, Nelson is surprised to discover that they scratch more easily than expected, suggesting owners should think where and how they put down their iPhone 14 if they don’t intend to add protectors.
Next we have the burn test. To be frank, this is really less “test” and more “wanton destruction.” After all, we can see how keys in a pocket might damage a display over time, but how often will you be holding a naked flame to your phone’s screen? Our guess is “not very.” Still, that doesn’t stop Nelson firing up his lighter and getting the flame up close and personal with the front of the iPhone 14. It doesn’t turn out well (of course it doesn’t), with pixels starting to suffer irreparable damage after about 20 seconds.
Finally, Nelson subjects the iPhone 14 to his unscientific bend test, a challenge that has in the past seen some of his devices spectacularly fail. Not so the iPhone 14, which remains intact despite the YouTuber’s best efforts to snap it clean in two.