After Consumer Reports flex test, new iPhones “not as bendy as believed”
Further Reading
Company doesn't admit design fault, describes five-step testing process.
After reports began to surface that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are far more bendable than their predecessors, Consumer Reports promised last week that it would put the new handsets to the test to settle the issue once and for all.
As of Friday evening, the results are in: 'Our tests show that both iPhones seem tougher than the Internet fracas implies.'
How exactly did the venerable magazine come to that conclusion? Using an Instron compression test machine, the researchers applied a 'three-point flexural test... in which the phone is supported at two points on either end, then force is applied at a third point on the top.' Consumer Reports tested a number of phones for comparison: an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, LG G3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, HTC One (M8), and, for good measure, an iPhone 5.
According to The Verge, which visited Apple's secret test site near 1 Infinite Loop, the phone maker itself applied 25 kilograms (55.1 pounds) of force to test the flexibility of thousands of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units. Consumer Reports says Apple's tests delivered 'approximately the force required to break three pencils,' but the magazine wanted to go even farther.
As it wrote:
Consumer Reports' tests pushed the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus much further than 55 pounds. We started light, applying 10 pounds of force for 30 seconds, then releasing the force. Then we increased the force in 10-pound increments, noted when the phones first started to deform (that's what our engineers call it) and stopped the test for each phone when we saw the screen come loose from the case.
All the phones we tested showed themselves to be pretty tough. The iPhone 6 Plus, the more robust of the new iPhones in our testing, started to deform when we reached 90 pounds of force, and came apart with 110 pounds of force. With those numbers, it slightly outperformed the HTC One (which is largely regarded as a sturdy, solid phone), as well as the smaller iPhone 6, yet underperformed some other smart phones.
Bottom line: while the new iPhone models performed worse than the iPhone 5, the LG G3 and the Galaxy Note 3, the magazine noted 'we expect that any of these phones should stand up to typical use.'
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