Today it's time for the Smartphone Durability Awards. It feels good to close out 2020. 2020
has been pretty crazy, but it's also been really good. 2020 is the year that we launched
The Rig – our Not A Wheelchair. It's been a pretty huge project for my wife and I. Dbrand
and I also gave away 100 phones to you guys, and donated over 30 TV's to different hospitals
and schools. We even built a school in Africa with your guys' help. That was back in January
before the whole pandemic started. I also built a huge raised flower garden for my wife,
and 3D printed a massive concrete statue of myself. And also got a close up look at some
awesome new electric vehicles, and even installed some solar panels on the roof of my house...which
I'll definitely be doing a follow up video on here in a few months. It's been a really
big year. And of course, we've durability tested and torn down quite a few phones along
the way, and today it's time for the 2020 Smartphone Durability Awards. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Let's start with the most repairable smartphone of 2020, and that award goes to the Google
Pixel 5, mostly because there are zero screws required to remove to replace the screen.
A skilled technician could replace the screen on the Google Pixel 5 in about 60 seconds
using just a heat plate, a suction cup, and a pry tool. Plus there's a layer between the
screen and the internals so you don't damage any of the other fragile electronics while
you're working around inside of there. It's pretty cool how Google was able to engineer
such an easy screen replacement on the Google Pixel 5, so it wins the most repairable screen
repair of 2020.
The least repairable smartphone however, has got to go the Blackshark 3. This is actually
kind of a funny story. My wife and I planned on doing like an April Fools video, and so
she was the one who took this apart. We had no idea how difficult it was going to be.
The different components of this phone are intertwined throughout the frame with multiple
heat pipes and it's pretty crazy inside. She was a trooper through and she managed to put
it all back together in one piece. But it's still the most difficult to repair smartphone
of 2020.
It was super difficult to pick the most innovative smartphone of 2020. You would think that during
a pandemic the innovation would kind of slow down, but this has been one of the most fun
years for smartphones we've had in a long time. One of my favorites has been the LG
Wing, which has a screen on the front that opens up into like a “T” shape with a
secondary screen underneath. It's something we never thought we wanted and probably still
don't need, but it's still innovative and pretty cool.
Then of course we have all the folding phones. This year they are much more durable and they
have the glass layer underneath that plastic screen which is pretty cool. The most innovative
smartphone of 2020 in my opinion has got to be the Axon 20 with its underscreen camera.
Flippy screens are cool, fans are cool, but in the future most smartphones, I think, are
going to be utilizing the technology that we first saw in this Axon 20. And as you know
if you've been around on my channel for a while, we take apart every single smartphone
to see what it looks like from the inside and how easy it is to repair. And the best
looking smartphone of 2020, once again it was hard to choose, but in my opinion that
has to go to the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It's hard to argue with the aesthetics of the MagSafe
charger. Remember it uses those magnets around the wireless charging coil. The blend of the
copper and the magnets just looks pretty good. Not to mention the special sensor shift up
here in the top camera sensor. I don't always use “Apple” and “innovative” in the
same sentence, but this year they've done a pretty good job with the iPhone. I do think
that the Note 20 Ultra comes in a close second with this dual colored motherboard, but I
still have to say that the best looking phone from the inside has got to be the iPhone 12
Pro Max.
Now, when we talk about the least durable smartphones of 2020, we kind of have a predicament
because we have two categories of smartphones. We have the normal glass rectangles and it's
pretty safe to say we have reasonable expectations of durability from these normal shaped smartphones.
But this year, along with last year, we have a new category of folding phones, and that
reasonable expectation of durability isn't the same since we're not really expecting
a folding phone to be durable. Now they are much more durable than we initially anticipated...or
at least for me. Bending the Galaxy Z Flip, or the Galaxy Fold in half is impossible with
how sturdy their hinge is. But as far as the screen goes, it's still super soft and not
as durable as a normal rectangular smartphone. So the folding phones get a pass for this
year, but as they get more popular and more and more common, we'll start ranking them
individually as well. They are still some of the most fun phones to take apart and see
how they work. This is the Galaxy Z Flip. We have the Galaxy Fold right here, as well
as the Moto RAZR which didn't get uh....he's just seen better days.
Out of the smartphones that do have a reasonable expectation of durability, we have the Light
Phone 2 that kind of snapped into little bits. It's super interesting to see the e-ink display
is still lit even after being destroyed. That technology is super interesting. But the Light
Phone 2 still isn't a real smartphone. The OnePlus Nord however did break entirely. The
glass on the screen didn't crack and the glass on the back didn't crack, but the screen underneath
the glass is destroyed, making the phone unusable after my durability test. So unfortunately
the OnePlus Nord wins the least durable smartphone of 2020. It's not the award you want to win.
Another award you don't want to win is a new one that I'm starting this year called The
Delusive Award. We know that every smartphone manufacturer will hype up their devices as
much as they can. You know, it's called marketing and everyone does it to some degree...Car
manufacturers, people on dating apps, politicians, resumes...we all do it a little bit. But there
is a point where that hype goes too far and steps into fantasy land. Samsung did toe the
line with their folding glass on their folding phones this year, where the folding glass
turned out to be a super tiny thin layer underneath all the layers of plastic. Delusive means
kind of misleading, not entirely truthful. They also toed the line with their Exynos
and Qualcomm fiasco. But there was a smartphone manufacturer that advertised over and over
and over again that their smartphone had a 100% recycled aluminum encasing, which makes
people think that the entire phone is made out of aluminum or has a metal body. When
in reality that metal was a skeleton hidden underneath a very thick layer of plastic.
Once again the advertising wasn't technically a lie, it was just creative enough that led
people to think it was something else than what it was, hence the delusive part.
The most delusive smartphone of 2020 was also the Google Pixel 5. You can see the super
thick layer of plastic surrounding that metal skeleton that Google just conveniently didn't
really mention. The Google Pixel 5 is also the most repairable smartphone of 2020, so
you win some and you lose some. The delusive award is not an award you want to win and
I hope I don't have to give it out next year.
Now for the most durable smartphone of 2020. Most phones do survive my durability tests.
Back in 2016 when I first started these durability awards, we had multiple phones snap in half.
But most phones these days are very solidly constructed, rigid, and just generally well
built smartphones. I can't say for certain if my videos helped in that quality improvement,
but accountability is a good thing. Pretty much every smartphone released this year has
glass on both sides and as we know, glass is glass and glass can break. And even though
glass feels premium, it's never going to be durable, especially when companies like Apple
are charging over $500 to replace the back glass on the iPhone 12 Pros. So I can't choose
a glass backed phone to be the most durable. The most durable smartphone, naked, right
out of the box, of 2020 has got to be the Pixel 4a. It's intentionally advertised as
plastic, but it's still strong enough to withstand my durability test. And as a bonus it's designed
in almost the same way as the Google Pixel 5 with it's super easy to swap screen. And
if that wasn't enough, it's also one of the cheapest phones on this table as well as one
of the few phones with a headphone jack. So the most durable smartphone of 2020 goes to
the Google Pixel 4a. Now don't get me wrong, any of these smartphones on this table can
be considered the most durable smartphone of 2020 if they have a case and a screen protector.
The takeaway from these durability tests and teardowns are that most smartphones are really
good, and if you treat them nice they are going to last for quite a while. So having
protection on your phone is a good thing. It can save you hundreds of dollars down the
road when you don't have to buy a new phone, because it's not broken.
I used my last phone for about 3 years and I always had a case on it. And I've had this
Galaxy Note 10 Plus for about a year now...a little over a year, and I have no intentions
of upgrading in the near future. Because as smartphones get better, they stay relevant
for longer.
And that's it. The smartphone durability awards of 2020. We had some awesome phones this year
and I'm excited to see what 2021 will bring us. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't
already. As you can see we have quite a lot of phones around here. Come hang out with
me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.