Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

iPhone X vs. Galaxy Note 9 drop test showdown: Which flagship is easier to break?

Updated Sep 3rd, 2018 7:33AM EDT
iPhone X vs. Galaxy Note 9 drop test
Image: Jacob Siegal/BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

The clumsier smartphone owners among us typically find out sooner than later how breakable their phone really is. But for the rest of us, it’s always nice to see a video demonstration, so we can see just how often our cases are going to save us a hundred bucks or so. With that in mind, PhoneBuff on YouTube returned this week with another drop test video, this time stacking the brand new Galaxy Note 9 up against the iPhone X.

If you’ve seen any of the past PhoneBuff drop test videos featuring the iPhone X, you’ll know that the phone’s ability to survive a nasty fall depends heavily on how it lands. Covered in glass on both sides, the iPhone X and the Note 9 are prone to cracking as soon as they hit the ground, but the iPhone X actually wins this duel.

As you can see in the video below, the first drop leaves the glass back of the Note 9 totally shattered, with spiderweb lines streaking from the bottom of the phone all the way up to the top. The iPhone X, on the other hand, only suffered a nearly imperceptible crack on the side and a scuff mark on the camera lens.

Two drops later, the Galaxy Note 9 has suffered significantly more damage than the iPhone X, though both phones are still operational. In fact, the only round in which the Note 9 wins comes near the end of the video, when PhoneBuff dropped the Note 9 up to ten times to see how long it would take to make the phone unusable. The iPhone X stopped working after just five drops, but the Note 9 was actually still kicking after ten drops.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.