The Huawei Mate 9.
I've been durability testing phone for a quite long time now.
Most phones survived my tests,
But out of the six phones on my
Shelf of Shame that didn't survive
Huawei owns two of those slots. I like
when phones survive. But Huawei's
history makes me a little nervous for
this Mate 9.
Let's get started!
[Intro]
The phone is a bit bigger than I thought it
would be. Slightly larger than my Galaxy
S7 Edge.
The one thing i do like seeing on this
phone are the two screws at the bottom.
Not only is a bonus for repairability,
but also for durability since the screws
are physically attaching that rear panel
to the frame making the phone more
structurally secure. Huawei has
included a built-in screen protector on
this phone.
Personally, I always have a screen
protector on my daily device. So this is
good news and it's a nice gesture. But it
does make me wonder if this was included
by Huawei to hide inferior glass. The only
way to find out is the scratch test. My
set of Mohs Picks are used to check
mineral hardness. Normally smartphone
glass will scratch it a level six.
Plastic screens scratch at a level 3. And real
sapphire scratches at an eight or a nine.
Keys and coins normally won't do damage
to a level 6 screen, which is good news
because this Mate 9 scratches at a
level 6. These are the same picks that I used
with the Honor 6X that scratched at a level 4.
*actually there's a little scratch at level 5* And if you understood what all those numbers meant,
you've been watching my channel for too long, and you should probably go outside. The front
camera is protected by the same screen
glass so no worries about that
scratching. And the earpiece is made out
of metal, with really small holes that
will keep out dirt and rocks. So thumbs
up for that.
*that terrifying sound of scratching metal*
Now it's time to find out what this phone is really made of.
The "Blade of Truth" reveals the "wonderful" (scary) sound of metal on metal,
which is one of the included materials in most flagships.
*scratching a jail bar with a razor*
One neat little life hack that most people
don't know about is
that you can turn any Android phone, in to a iPhone
in just a few seconds.
This might be a downgrade in some cases,
but you really can't even tell a
difference. If I move up to the dual
camera lenses on this Mate 9, you can
see they are covered by glass. And that
glass is not scratched by my razor blade.
This is good news. The laser focus is off
to the right side of the camera and this
is covered by plastic. Plastic does
scratch but it's still slightly
protected by that raised lip of the
camera lenses so I wouldn't worry about
this too much. The flash on the left side
is also plastic but it still protected
by that same camera lip as well, and
won't ever be running directly on a desk or
flat surface. The fingerprint scanner is
pretty easy to scratch. It's not made of
glass or ceramic, unfortunately. I've had
multiple phones survive heavily
scratching fingerprint scanners like this,
but this Mate 9 is not one of them.
This is still not something to stress
about though and it's not a dealbreaker.
The scanner itself is recessed into the
phone so it won't be easily damaged. It's
mostly just interesting to see which
phones survive and which ones don't.
The sides the phone are made of metal. It's
nice to see that we don't have any
material switching going on. That cold
premium metal feeling surrounds all sides
of the phone, and even the buttons are
made of metal. Solid choice.
The only place that plastic appears is
the top and bottom of that back panel.
This is for the antenna to the phones.
Plastic allows the signals through where
metal would not. You can see the color
difference between a shiny silver metal
panel and the gray plastic bar at the top.
We'll see if that plastic affects the
build quality in just a second.
Even though the back of my Mate 9 might
currently look like an Apple product,
most people will realize that it's not
actually an iPhone when they see that it
has useful features like the headphone jack
or the IR blaster that turns
your cell phone into a universal remote
control.
It's got to be nice having a phone that
actually does stuff. the Mate 9 does
have a 1080p IPS display though. Very
similar to the real iPhone. And this
display lasts nine seconds under the
intense heat for my lighter before dying.
But after the heat is removed, the pixels
will turn back on and function like
normal.
This is mostly just cool to watch. It's
time we find out how solid the phone
really is. Bend tests check the structural
integrity and build quality of the
device.
Only 6 of the 50 phones that I've
tested have catastrophically failed. The
Mate 9 survived the first round of
the bend test. You can see the front screen
lift out of the rear panel a bit. But the
whole phone is still intact. Those screws
at the bottom are keeping the phone
together. And the back panel is adding
support to the frame. They're working as a
team,
unlike the Honor 6X. After my extreme
abuse there is some minor flex to the phone
frame, but that can be corrected,
while the device is still surviving. So
this one passes the bend test. And
overall this device gets a thumbs up from
me. It'll be fun to see what it looks
like from the inside during my teardown
video.
What else would you like to see me do to
these phones during my durability test?
Let me know in the comments. And hit that
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Turn on the notifications so you know
whether your next phone is durable or
not, before you go out and buy it. And
share this video with any Mate 9 owners
to let them know they made a good phone
buying decision. Thanks for watching I'll
see you around.