The new iPhone 12 series comes with several new features such as 5G connectivity, A14 Bionic SoC, USB Type-C port for charging, and more. In addition, the latest iPhone 12 lineup also features a ceramic shield cover on top of the OLED display that is said to be more durable than the display on iPhone 11 series. Last week, we noticed the hardware inside the iPhone 12 in a teardown video that highlighted its 2,815mAh battery and Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem. Today we’re looking at the durability of the new Apple smartphone through a series of scratch and screen durability tests.
The YouTube channel MobileReviewsEh had tested the durability of the iPhone 12 screen using a force meter and compared it against last year’s vanilla iPhone 11. The test shows that the iPhone 11’s screen will break when 352 Newtons of pressure is applied while the iPhone 12 withstands a pressure measuring 443 Newtons before breaking. The video then moves to the scratch test where the iPhone 12 showed a better scratch resistance on the front “by a bit.” During the test, the YouTuber Aaron The-ho used a bunch of materials including a rock, a box cutter, and keys. The scratch test then further uses a Mohs hardness test, where iPhone 11 shows scratch marks at level six and seven (both back and front panel) while the iPhone 12 shows scratches at level seven.
The video concludes with the iPhone 12 being “tougher” than the iPhone 11, thanks to the new ceramic shield cover on top. Although there was no drop test shown in the video, Apple claims that the ceramic shield offers four times better drop performance than previous iPhone models. The iPhone 12 is currently available for pre-booking in India at Rs. 79,900 (64GB) via Apple e-retail stores. Once the phone starts shipping across more markets, we can expect more thorough durability tests by other users.
