This brand new Pocophone F1 by Xiaomi has been one of my most requested durability tests
of all time.
Flagship specs with a super cheap budget phone price – right around $300.
The thing I'm most interested in is the internal liquid cooling system, and the 4,000 milliamp
hour battery, which would rank it right up against the $1,000 Galaxy Note 9 that has
the same specs.
This video though, is about durability.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
Right out of the box this phone feels heavy and solid, which is a good thing.
Weight is usually subconsciously associated with quality.
Like always, with my systematic durability tests, we'll start with the screen.
With a $300 budget phone like this one, it would not be crazy to see a cheaper plastic
screen covering the display, but as we can tell from this Mohs scale of hardness, the
screen resists scratching until a level 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7.
It's covered in Gorilla Glass and you won't have to worry about keys or coins or razor
blades scratching the large 6.2 inch display.
Xiaomi has included a 20 megapixel HDR front facing camera up in the notch of this phone,
right next to the face unlock.
Both are tucked up under that glass layer and protected against scratching.
The center earpiece is made from metal, which is definitely more durable than the cloth
earpieces we've seen in some of the older Pixels.
This budget phone is shaping up to have a nice solid build.
Delving deeper into the physical attributes with my calibrated surgical instruments, we
scientifically discover various coatings.
A shiny silver layer of paint lies directly underneath that graphite black layer, giving
the impression of metal.
But the sound is different.
Our razor blade of truth reveals that the sides of the phone are made entirely from
plastic, which quite honestly is not a big deal whatsoever, as long as the plastic does
not compromise the structural integrity.
We'll find out in a second.
The buttons are made from metal and do not pop out of the phone body like we've found
on some of the Samsung phones.
Down at the bottom of the F1 with our modern USB-C port, we discover more plastic.
It's been a long time since we've had a fully plastic phone on my desk.
But you can see all these soundless large chunks of plastic falling away under my razor
blade, and by razor blade I mean my scientifically calibrated phone testing apparatus.
It does have a headphone jack though – that's pretty cool.
The SIM and SD card tray is made from plastic.
When I pull it out from the phone, we can see zero water resistance around the opening.
No rubber rings to be found.
I'll check out the other internal orifices for ingress protection during the teardown,
but it's pretty safe to say that this phone is not safe around liquid whatsoever.
Moseying our way around to the back of the phone, we find dual cameras.
But once again Xiaomi is not using any wide angle or telephoto lenses like we see on the
iPhones or with Samsung.
This means that the second camera is still more of a glorified decoration than anything
else.
Both cameras are protected by glass, which is good, but if an extra camera is going to
take up precious space inside my phone, it might as well give me additional perspective
or zoom...right?
Let me know what you think.
The fingerprint scanner is unscratchable and invincible, which is good.
Thumbs up for that impressiveness.
The flash off to the side is made from plastic, but that's totally normal and will still do
it's job no matter how scratched up it gets.
You'll notice that the back of the phone has a much quieter sound than normal.
Again, back here we have more polycarbonate, which is plastic.
There is a version of the Pocophone F1 made with a Kevlar backing, but it's a bit more
expensive, and I wanted to test the version that the majority of people will end up buying.
The plastic back against my razor is almost silent, but I felt it was only fair to draw
a poke on the back of the Pocophone.
You might remember this little design from a social media app that old people use called
Facebook.
The Pocophone branding down at the bottom does have a shiny gleam to it, but the lettering
is permanent and won't be falling out individually.
One thing to remember that with plastic, it has a lower scratch resistance than glass
falling at a level 3 on Mohs scale.
So keys and coins will be able to damage the phone if they're all in the same pocket.
But on the plus side, the plastic backing won't shatter in a drop.
Either way, there is a free case in the box and I recommend using it.
Protection is a good thing.
The Pocophone F1 has a 6.2 inch 1080p IPS display, and lasted about 10 seconds before
the pixels turned off and went black.
I've been burning phones for about 3 years now and still haven't found a valid reason
for this test, but you've got to admit, the recovery is pretty satisfying.
The bend test though, is much more important, especially since phones these days are powerful
enough to be relevant for years, and the physical integrity of that phone is pretty crucial
to the lifespan.
The Pocophone F1 has the same thickness of the Galaxy Note 9, but like we found out,
is made from plastic.
The initial bend showed a heart-fluttering flex in the top half of the device, but locks
out and does not have any permanent deformities like we saw with the metal Xiaomi Note 5 Pro.
Nor does it catastrophically snap in half like the Xiaomi Mi5.
Even though it's plastic, this Pocophone F1 might be one of the most structurally sound
phones Xiaomi has ever made.
Even when bent from both directions, there's no permanent damage anywhere.
The F1 passes my durability test and gets a thumbs up from me.
Go ahead and poke that subscribe button if you haven't already.
I'll be tearing down this phone in the next video to see if that industry leading liquid
cooling system is real or not.
Thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.