Consumer Reports bent several smartphones to find the iPhone 6 Plus holds up fine
Following reports that the iPhone 6 Plus can easily bend in your pocket, and a subsequent video from Unbox Therapy claiming to show just how bendable the big screen iPhone model is, Consumer Reports decided to put several smartphones to the test. Instead of trying to bend the phones by hand, however, CR put each through a three-point flexural test in its own labs.
So far Apple has received nine complaints about bent iPhones and has said it will replace warped phones that don't apper to have been intentionally abused. The notion that bent iPhones is a widespread issue is being called into question, as is the video showing a 6 Plus bent by hand.
CR said in its report,
We applied and measured the force using a high-precision Instron compression test machine. Along with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, we tested the LG G3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and HTC One (M8), and for those wondering about their old iPhones, we tested the iPhone 5 as well. We used one sample of each phone. We've done that now, and our tests show that both iPhones seem tougher than the Internet fracas implies.
All the phones were tested to see how much force it took to deform the body and how much force to took cause enough of a bend to pull the display away from the body. For the iPhone 6, that was 90 pounds of force and 110 pounds of force.
The HTC One (M8) deformed at 70 pounds and suffered case separation at 90 pounds. Apple's iPhone 6 deformed at 70 pounds, too, and separated at 100 pounds.
CR said the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 bent easily, but recovered up until the reached their breaking point. The LG's body cracked at 130 pounds and the Note 3 did the same at 150 pounds.
For comparison, it took 80 pounds of pressure to break four wooden pencils at the same time, which is pretty substantial. Doing the same by and would take some real strength.
The conclusion: The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are durable phones and aren't any more prone to bending than smartphones from other companies.
“All the phones we tested showed themselves to be pretty tough,” CR said. “While nothing is (evidently) indestructible, we expect that any of these phones should stand up to typical use.”