Today we're going to durability test the iPhone 12 Pro and it's ceramic shield covered front screen.
You might have noticed that the box is a little bit smaller this year.
You know how Apple has slowly been removing things with each new product launch.
First was the headphone jack, then the HDMI on their laptops, and now it's the charging
brick itself that's gone. It's always exciting to find out what's going to disappear next.
Apple definitely keeps you on your toes. Honestly though, it's probably a good thing. Their 5 watt
inbox charger was the slowest charger of any phone anywhere. And now there's no reason not to upgrade
to the faster charging Anker Nano, which costs less while still charging three times faster...all
while keeping the same size as the old brick. Thanks to Anker for sponsoring this video.
Now iPhone users will get to experience the fast charging that Androids have had
for years. I'll leave a link down in the video description that will give you a 10% discount
off the Anker Nano...because you know, if Apple isn't going to hook you up, Anker for sure will.
Now it's time for the durability test. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Personally, I think it's a bit sus that Apple got rid of the free inbox charger at the exact same
time they came out with a new type of magnetic charging...which conveniently costs $40, by the
way. I'm sure it's all just a coincidence though. Just like how the headphone jack disappeared at
the same time the wireless airpods came out. You know, totally normal behavior.
You can see that inside the magnetic circular attachment is a group of coiled wires
that transfer power to the other set of coiled wires inside of the phone. We'll have to see
what those look like for realsies when we open them up for the teardown video, but
while we're here on the outside we can see where the magnets are located with some metal shavings.
The magnets form a perfect circle around the outside of the copper coils.
Thumbs up for that. I think it's kind of cool,
even if you aren't able to keep your credit card and phone in the same pocket anymore.
It's probably a good idea in general though to keep metal shavings away from your phone.
If you remember, the earpiece and loudspeaker are also both made with magnets, so if any small
shavings get sucked up inside of the phone we can tear the speakers to shreds. I'm sure the ip68
waterproofing will help keep the dust and shavings out. But still, it's better safe than sorry.
Speaking of being safe rather than sorry,
Apple has stepped up their phone design quite a bit this year with a lot of focus on the screen.
Apple says their new ceramic shield is a step beyond glass. But it's as important to listen
closely to their carefully structured buzzword filled sentences. Apple said they've included
nano-ceramic crystals within the glass matrix to dramatically improve toughness. And yeah, they
might have found a new way of forming glass to make it tougher, but those new crystals are still
within a glass matrix, which means it's still glass no matter how many other words they add to
the sentence. And if glass is still glass...you know the rest. Apple doesn't mention much about
scratch resistance, just drop protection and toughness. They also use the phrase “along with
our new design it makes the iPhone tougher than ever.” So it's not just the new glass.
I think a large part of that four times more drop resistance comes from the design, with the glass
totally flush sitting just inside the surface of the frame. A piece of glass has 6 sides:
front, back, and all 4 edges. And with 5 of those 6 sides protected by this phone frame
in a way that most smartphones are not built, it really does make this iPhone 12 Pro
more shatter resistant. So I do believe Apple's claim about the glass being 4 times tougher,
but I think the protective design has more to do with it than the buzzwords do.
I've scratched hundreds and hundreds of phones in this exact same way, and Apple's ceramic shield is
still scratching at a level 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7. It might just be my imagination,
but it does look like the level 6 scratches are a tad more faint, but they are definitely still
there. Ceramic shield is not the product that will bring us to the next level of Mohs hardness.
One thing that can always be certain though, is that as Apple removes things from the box,
the high price will always remain the same. The only way to really keep your screen scratch free
and resale value high is with a screen protector.
I've installed thousands of screen protectors from my pre-YouTube phone repair days,
and it only takes a few seconds. The biggest obstacle is the dust underneath the glass.
But there's an alcohol wipe and a dust sticker in the box to help mitigate that.
The screen protector is held in place by a thin layer of nano adhesive so there's no residue
left on the glass when it's ever removed. And since the iPhone 12 Pro display is totally flat,
the precision cut screen protector makes it look like it was meant to be there.
Just like you wear safety glasses to protect your eyes and a mask to protect your lungs,
a screen protector is a cheap way to avoid a lot of future regret. I'll leave a link for
dbrand screen protectors down in the video description. Plus, these aren't your normal
plastic rubbery screen protectors either. It's an additional layer of protective tempered glass.
And as we know, glass is glass, and glass can...it's much easier to replace a $10
screen protector than it is to replace a $270 display. I'll leave that link in the description.
Now if I'm being totally honest, I do have to say that the iPhone 12 Pro is one of the cleanest
looking and best feeling phones that I've held in a really long time. And the frame is surprisingly
hard to scratch. The sides of the iPhone 12 Pro are made from stainless steel, and since
my razor blade is also made from stainless steel, they're having a hard time damaging each other.
The paint is obviously still going to scratch off. Most phones are usually made from softer aluminum.
Aluminum is like a 3 or 4 on Mohs scale. So this stainless steel at
Mohs 5 is quite a bit more resilient It's just the paint that's not. The silver
colored version of the iPhone is going to hide this kind of damage the best.
There is no expandable memory of course. There never was. The magnets on the back can be a handy
SIM card removal tool holder. And then of course at the bottom we still have our lightning port.
I'm also a big fan of the textured glass back here.
You can hear the difference my razor blade makes when it goes
from the rough frosted texture to the smooth glass on the Apple logo.
The textured glass has the ability to act like sandpaper to other objects. Since glass is a very
hard material, softer objects like this penny will leave marks behind on the glass. But the
marks aren't permanent. It's just dust caught on the rough surface and can be rubbed away.
The top camera bump is relatively reasonable this year, when compared to Samsung's monstrosities.
The bottom lens is a 12 megapixel 2x optical zoom telephoto. Then we have
the 12 megapixel ultrawide in the center. And the main 12 megapixel sensor up top. And each
camera lens is again covered with its own sapphire crystal lens cover.
It's still getting marks levels 6 and 7, but you already know how I feel about that.
The screen of the iPhone 12 Pro is a 6.1 inch super retina XDR display,
meaning it's OLED. And has a slightly higher resolution than 1080p. A cool thing though
is that even after 30 seconds from the heat of my lighter, the pixels on the OLED are still unfazed
with zero damage. Other phones start to turn white and not recover. Now I'm no materials expert,
but ceramic is a slower conductor of heat than glass is, meaning that the heat doesn't transfer
through it as easy. So it is possible that Apple's new screen material is keeping the heat away from
the pixels. This doesn't mean quite a whole lot as far as lighters go, but it does add a little
validity to the new ceramic crystal material claim that Apple is making. The oleophobic
coating is definitely evaporated though, so don't try the burn test on your own phone.
What about the bend test? I mean, it's probably easy to guess, but with the more
solid stainless steel frame and recessed glass on both sides keeping the box rigid,
the iPhone 12 Pro is a non-flexing tank of a cell phone and I'm impressed. No bends, kinks,
or cracks of any kind in the frame. Apple is, and always has been, premium and expensive,
but at least lately the materials have started to match the price tag a bit better.
I used my last phone for over 3 years, and I've only had my current phone for about a year,
so I'm not ready to upgrade just yet. Maybe someday I'll try out the iPhone again, but I'll
wait until next year's iPhone 13 Pro Max Ultra Pro 6G no screen edition before I make up my mind.
I'll leave links in the description for that stuff Apple forgot to include, like the charger and
screen protector. Let me know what you think of Apple's new phone down in the comments.
You cool with them leaving out the charger? Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.
And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.