this is big this is big guys what's up
guys Lew here back with another video
and things are about to get scientific
right here on unbox therapy you might
recall a previous video in which I
showed you this what is likely the back
plate for the upcoming iPhone 6s now I
just compared the dimensions in that
video I looked at this shell compared to
the shell from the standard iPhone 6
that I have over here but the
speculation was actually relating to the
material in use and what the effect of
that might have on the durability of the
upcoming device now a lot of speculation
is out there regarding this new phone
and whether or not it will move to
something called a 7000 series aluminum
most people out there probably don't
know exactly what that means I certainly
didn't that's why I did some extensive
research and even some fairly elaborate
testing but before I get into that you
probably noticed this thing over here
this is obviously some kind of
monstrosity fabricated from the geniuses
over at D brand skins if you don't know
who they are you should definitely go
and check them out but this is a
makeshift Ben test machine which will
essentially give us a readout how much
weight is necessary or how much force in
a weight equivalent is necessary to
actually bend these two shells now these
aren't the complete phones keep that in
mind
potentially an even more interesting
test because we can actually look at the
aluminum attributes and how that affects
the durability of a device and why Apple
might be moving to a different material
so eventually I realized that what I
needed was something called an XRF
analyzer this thing shoots x-rays into
common alloys and tells you what their
elemental makeup is now before we get
into the elemental makeup of each of
these iPhone shells the six and the new
6s I want to give a shout out to
elemental controls in mississauga I hit
these guys up shortly after I found out
about these XRF analyzers and they were
like come on down let's do the tests so
here's the readout for the iPhone 6 show
essentially what we ended up with is a
common alloy as you can see up here the
readout was six zero six three from the
6000 series
of aluminum now this 6000 series alloy
is probably the most commonly bought
sold manufactured alloy on the planet
some speculated represents somewhere in
the neighborhood of 75 to 80% of all
alloys in use it's fairly easily
machinable so obviously it makes sense
to use it in manufacturing it also
anodized this very easily and as you
know with iPhones and various other
electronics that use aluminum generally
there's some kind of anodized ation that
gives it its color looking closer at the
readout you can see the exact elemental
makeup of 6:06 3 it's mostly aluminum
98.9 4% with a tiny bit of iron a little
bit of silicon and a little bit of
magnesium essentially this is mostly the
abundant element aluminum so this 6 0 6
3 aluminum is used in so many
applications that you're probably
familiar with windows doors automotive
the only possible problem with this
material is that it bends a little bit
as you know you've witnessed in previous
videos it's not the strongest type of
aluminum okay so there's the reading on
the iPhone 6 the old shell which we know
has been prone to bending but let's go
ahead and look at the report for the new
one now this this is where things get
interesting
first things first the alloy has a much
thicker anodization before taking our
reading we actually had to sand off that
anodization to get a clear reading of
the aluminum itself we did the same for
the older shell but sanding this
anodization off proved to be far more
difficult implying that it's a much
thicker coating now under the x-ray
under the gun what's going to stand out
and what's important on this list is not
the aluminum that's at ninety one point
one seven four percent of the makeup but
the zinc now we took a number of
different readings on this component and
each one came out a little bit different
but essentially we always had this
significant presence of zinc which
points to 7000 series aluminum the
addition of zinc here improves the
strength of the material okay so why did
Apple change was this bendgate thing
really as small of an imp
as people were speculating or maybe it
affected more devices than we even know
bottom line is this they've selected
7000-series now they've reinforced it in
specific regions and ultimately the
expectation would be that we're going to
see less bends in the next version than
we saw in the previous but it does come
at a cost with the addition of zinc we
are also going to increase the
likelihood of corrosion
nobody likes corrosion and that is what
leads me to believe that they've gone
with a different anodization process
they've increased the amount that's on
the surface now the next drawback of
7000 series aluminium expense this stuff
is way more expensive for a number of
reasons but it mostly has to do with the
availability and this is about to become
a lot more common but in the meantime
the likely effect is that the cost of
production for an iPhone could go up in
this new material could cost as much as
five times more I think it's fairly safe
to say that this is going to be a little
bit more labor-intensive to get out in
volume when compared to the 6000 series
construction but the real question here
is how much stronger is it all worth it
so beside me as mentioned earlier I have
this crazy contraption which is going to
measure force apply to each of these
units and I'm going to go ahead and find
out exactly how much stronger this
component is as it is the backbone for
the upcoming iPhone so let's go ahead
and start with the iPhone 6 shell in
order to get our baseline now the reason
you're already seeing a reading on the
scale here is because this top portion
of our contraption is on top of the
scale itself if I lift this up you'll
see it comes down to 0 0 pounds 0 ounces
so when considering the total amount of
force that's applied to the actual units
we essentially need to start with the
weight of this component itself so the
moment that I insert this shell we're
starting at a point of 2 pounds and in
this case 10 ounces 10 point 2 or 3
ounces so this is the old shell we've
now added the additional weight
the actual shell now let's go ahead and
slowly apply some pressure to this keep
an eye on that scale we're now
approaching closer to 20 pounds 1924
just under 30 pounds of force and we are
completely bent there you can see here
at the volume buttons in that weak spot
at about 30 pounds
we are bent I'm going to go ahead and
remove this really quickly both sides on
the two obvious weak points as we've
known previously near the power button
as well as near the volume rocker
we have weakness and we have a best a
representation of not just the bend
ability of the material but also those
weak points that I mentioned in the
previous video but what happens if we
increase the pressure even more okay so
we're bright back at 30 pounds there you
can see it's starting to bend by 32 it's
really having difficulty and by I don't
know let's say by 35 I mean it's
indistinguishable essentially you have
significant bending at 30 pounds of
force and anything beyond that the the
shell just begins to crumble
significantly it's interesting in this
particular case we have a bend right
across those two weak points there now
it's time for the 6s back plate the
thing we've identified as probably from
this 7000 series of super strong
aluminum used in aerospace and now
potentially used in your phone so let's
go ahead and do the same thing so there
we go
of course the measurement hasn't changed
much here because the shell doesn't
weigh very much itself we're going to go
ahead and start to tighten it down
now the magic number here as you know is
thirty thirty pounds
we want to see what happens at about 30
pounds of force clothes we are at 31
pounds over 31 pounds and it's not
significantly bent yet keep going here
36 weight Wow
we are at 46 pounds now 53 this is
getting tough to twist now 60 pounds of
force 70 the old phone the entire phone
bent at 70 pounds of force on the
previous version 80
I can hear it bending now 80 pounds Wow
80 pounds was the number guys I'm gonna
go ahead and remove this now 30 and 80
that is a huge improvement Wow did not
expect it to be that much stronger of
course they're both bent now and they
still bent relatively in the same
locations but you will notice here
though the power button the power cut
out on this one untouched compared to
the old device right around the interior
of the volume buttons where there was
that weak point not exactly where it
bent bent below there but not with as
much aggressiveness as on the old one
and we were applying more than double
the amount of force this is pretty damn
impressive guys honestly beyond what I
expected to find not only do we have
evidence here that this is made out of
7000 series aluminum but now we
understand the impact of that the impact
of that is a phone that will be more
than twice as strong as the previous
version is this a win for consumer
reporting when the bendgate video came
out I didn't really understand the
magnitude of it but what this looks like
is that everybody who picks up the next
version of the iPhone is going to get
something that's extremely strong and
that video might have something to do
with it so there you have it hopefully
you guys enjoyed this content if you did
make sure to leave a thumbs up down
below or you could do one better and
share this video with anyone you think
would find it interesting shout out to
the two companies who helped out with
this there's actually three total people
who helped make this video possible so
you've got Sonny Dixon who hooked me up
with the shell for the upcoming iPhone
the iPhone 6s shell you've got D brand
who built this crazy contraption I'll
link them down below so you can check
out their skins for all kinds of
different devices and then of course
elemental controls who came out of
nowhere to bring the heat with the
scientific data amazing stuff this is
really a next-level type video I hope
you guys appreciated it we had a lot of
fun making it so there you have it I
guess you're a little bit smarter I know
I am thanks again for watching and I'll
catch you on the next episode subscribe
for more videos like this later guys