The day you’ve been waiting for is finally here. Your brand new iPhone is either shipping on Friday, or awaits in a retail store. It’s also the day when regular users get to put the iPhone XS and XS Max through various tests, the kind of tests that early reviewers shy away from. I am talking about durability tests, and especially drop tests that look at how the new iPhone handle drops. The good news is that the iPhone XS and XS Max seem nearly indestructible. The bad news is that glass is still glass, which means your mileage will vary.
The iPhone XS is made of “exceptional materials,” Apple explains on its iPhone XS page. That’s “the most durable glass ever in a smartphone,” and “precision-machined, surgical-grade stainless steel.” The new gold finish, meanwhile, is achieved with “an atomic-level process.” This marketing talk, while impressive, will mean nothing when you have to shell out plenty of cash to fix the cracked glass. Remember that Apple can’t guarantee yet that the phone won’t crack. So your best bet still is using protective gear for both the screen and the body of the phone.
But the iPhone XS drop test below, which features both XS versions as well as the iPhone X, reveals that Apple made significant progress when it comes to improving the durability of its devices.
The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max don’t only survive drops from three and six feet, but the stainless steel doesn’t even scuff. We already know that Apple is indeed working on manufacturing technologies that would prevent scratches and scuffs, but we have no idea if the iPhone XS takes advantage of any of those processes.
What’s even more impressive is that the iPhone XS survived a drop from approximately 10 feet. The XS Max, however, didn’t.
That’s because drop tests are inherently subjective. The YouTubers who do them have different ways of performing these drop tests, so results may vary — you can expect plenty of other iPhone XS drop tests to hit YouTube now that the phones are out.
