Welcome again to the Jerryrigeverything durability circus! In this ring, we have one of the newest phones from Microsoft, the Lumia 950 XL! Step right up to see how the Lumia 950 XL’s Gorilla Glass screen holds up to scratches dealt by special picks made to assess the hardness of the phone’s screen according to Moh’s scale of hardness. Lean in closer to watch the AMOLED screen of the Lumia 950 XL burn. Hold your breath as we bend this phone to it’s farthest limits. Is there actually liquid cooling in this smartphone? Do you want more than words rolling across your screen? Watch the video:
and follow along to JerryRigEverything!
Before we begin, as always, please remember that there is more than durability to take into account when making a smartphone purchase. I always keep my phones in cases and cover screens with screen protectors for safe keeping, even if they pass these tests.
First up, the scratch test. The Lumia 950 XL, fitted with Gorilla Glass 4, doesn’t receive a scratch until a level 6 pick attacks and then a deeper groove on level 7. Car keys and coins shouldn’t be a concern for this screen. The back camera glass is just as good as the screen yielding to neither keys nor coins. The back cover of the phone is made of removable and replaceable plastic that is scratched by both keys and a razor blade. The windows logo on the back is inlaid into the back plastic layer in a way similar to the older Nexus 6.
Flame time! Pixels on most other phones that have been tested on JerryRigEverything respond pretty quickly to a lighter by turning off and going black and returning to normal or turning white and being dead from there forward. The Lumia 950 XL AMOLED display reacts differently. After leaving the flame in the same space for over sixty seconds, the pixels still remained on: the best reaction seen thus far.
Upon receiving the Lumia 950 XL, I figured the bend test would destroy it because it does not feel very expensive at all, but it stood up just fine. Removing the back reveals a very rigid battery within, similar to the LGG4, I think this component keeps the phone from breaking.
Now for the water cooling copper bit inside the Lumia 950 XL. The box-shaped component at the end of the copper wire would be the evaporator, where liquid heats up and travels up the condenser pipe to cool off and then starts the cycle again back at the evaporator. In Microsoft’s Lumia 950 XL announcement video, they clearly state that the phone has liquid cooling: here is a link to that video on YouTube. On the other hand, the Microsoft store does not list liquid cooling as one of the Lumia 950 XL’s specifications. After physically investigating that copper pipe, I found zero liquid. The large copper heat-sink is great for this phone, but it is definitely not liquid cooling.
Thank you for reading, drop questions or comments about the Lumia 950 XL below here or on the video. Share this post and the accompanying video with people who swear this phone has liquid cooling or want to see pixels that don’t mind heat.