Welcome once more to the JerryRigEverything durability circus! Today’s ring holds the BlackBerry Priv! Step right up to see how this Gorilla Glass 4 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 this AMOLED screen burn. Hold your breath as we bend this sliding phone to it’s farthest limits. Would you like to see it for yourself? Watch the video on YouTube:
Before we begin, as always, please remember that there is more than durability to take into account when making a smartphone purchase. Also, even if they pass these tests, I keep my personal phones in cases and cover my screens with screen protectors for safe keeping.
Up first on the agenda is a scratch test. Moh’s Scale of Hardness goes from one to ten with one, the softest material, being equivalent to Talc powder and ten, the hardest, being as hard as a diamond. The BlackBerry Priv is equipped with level 4 Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass 4 usually scratches at level 6 and the BlackBerry Priv was no exception. The 6 scratches and the 7 leaves a more visible mark on the glass. You won’t have to worry about keys or coins in pockets scratching your BlackBerry Priv, but a razor blade or sand might will scratch your screen.
The back rubber of the phone has a soft pleasant feel to it. A key sliding across the back does mostly nothing until a sharp edge catches the phone and scratches it a decent amount. The back material also does not peel off when scraped with a razor blade. The camera’s lens has a different story. A razor and even keys scratch this essential part of the phone very easily. If I had to guess the camera lens would score around a 3 on the hardness test. Very sad because camera lens scratches can render the phone’s camera virtually useless. This phone also has a keyboard, so we tested that. The plastic scratches as expected, but the keys are wholly sealed, so worrying about dirt or cookie crumbs in your keyboard won’t be necessary. Why do you think BlackBerry held back on the camera lens?
Moving forward to the burn test. The BlackBerry Priv is equipped with an AMOLED screen. Usually screens pass this burn test by turning off and going black where the flame is held, but once the flame is gone the screen pixels come back on. In contrast, these pixels turn white which may signal complete death, which is what happened to the Nexus 6p. Instead, there is no mark left behind from burned pixels and the screen is cool to the touch after the flame is removed. The BlackBerry Priv passes the burn test.
For the grand finale, I present the bend test! Doing a bend test on a sliding phone seems like an awful idea and a mission that is failed from the start, but let’s give it a miniature shot. A gentle bend while the keyboard is slided out shows the phone’s ability to flex quite a bit more than your average phone. Even when the phone is closed the space where the keyboard slides in bends up in what looks to be a disastrous way. Keep in mind that most flagship phones are not slider test so comparing the BlackBerry Priv to the other smartphones is like comparing oysters to steak: not fair and people have their own individual tastes which they are entitled to.
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