Welcome to another round of the JerryRigEverything durability circus! In this ring, we have the $250 budget phone: OnePlus X! Step right up to see how this Gorilla Glass 3 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 budget phone burn. Hold your breath as we bend this less expensive phone to it’s farthest limits. Do you to see and hear the action for yourself? Watch the video on YouTube:
and follow along to JerryRigEverything!
Smartphone repair tool kit on Amazon can be found at this link.
Before we begin, as always, please remember that there is more than durability to take into account when making a smartphone purchase. Also ,even when my phones pass these tests, I keep cases and screen protectors on them for safety.
Starting out the party 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. OnePlus X is equipped with Gorilla Glass 3 which doesn’t scratch until about a level 6 and leaves a deeper groove at level 7. This is very similar to flagship smartphones equipped with Gorilla Glass 4. The OnePlus X also comes with a preinstalled screen protector for added safety. A razor blade does some screen damage, buy keys and even coins in pockets won’t end up scratching the screen of the OnePlus X. The back of the is made of the same material as the front of the phone and scratches at the same levels: a level 6 scratches and level 7 leaves a deeper groove. A razor blade slices through easily, but the back should be safe against keys and coins; plus the back panel is replaceable. When a razor blade is scratched against the camera lens, there are no marks left behind; the OnePlus X has a scratch resistant camera lens. The metal sides of the OnePlus X have a nice handfeel, but the metal is rather soft and scratches against metal razor blades and car keys, so be mindful of keeping those in the same pocket as your phone. The OnePlus X passes the scratch test just as well as most $700 phones and even better than the Blackberry Priv which does not have a scratchproof camera lens at all.
Next, is the fear-invoking burn test. Most phone screens do well on this test by turning off and going black where the flame is held, but once the flame is gone the screen pixels come back on seemingly unharmed. The OnePlus X is a sadder story: the pixels that turn white do not come back on. The OnePlus X, with its budget AMOLED display, unfortunately fails the burn test.
At last we have reached the bend test. Due to the cheaper nature of this phone, it is highly expected to fail this portion of the durability test, but let’s find out. An initial bend shows the phone’s ability to flex, but then it locks out. Even after bending it in the opposite direction, the $250 OnePlus X fails to break. If you watch the teardown of this device you will see that many units inside the phone are housed in their own compartments, giving a lot of structural integrity to the phone and making it basically unbendable. An impressive pass of the bend test goes to the OnePlus X.
Make sure you’re subscribed to the JerryRigEverything YouTube channel to be notified of every new video; every flagship phone is slated to go through this durability test and you’ll want to see all of them.
Share this post and the accompanying video with friends and family who think the OnePlus X can’t compete against much more expensive phones, in terms of durability.