So I've been using the Galaxy S8 since it came out – about 2 ½ years ago. And I think
it's time for a change. I've gotten myself an upgrade and I've got a little something
for you guys as well. I think you'll like it.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
People ask me all the time why I don't change my phone more often, and the answer's pretty
simple. Phones haven't really changed a whole lot in the last 2 ½ years. Yeah, small incremental
upgrades with each new version of the phone, but nothing earth-shattering has occurred.
Nothing that warrants a $1000 upgrade. This Galaxy S8 Plus still handles every app that
I throw at it just fine.
Funny story about the yellow coloring on the back of my phone. About a year ago I tweeted
that if dbrand changed the very boringly named Carbon Yellow to Bulletproof Banana, I would
skin my phone in it. And they actually did it. So here we are. Man of my word. And to
this day, Carbon Yellow is still called Bulletproof Banana on their website.
Okay, so the S8, while it's still working great, does have some flaws after 2 ½ years.
The first of which is this crazy burn-in on the screen. The keyboard is very permanently
burned into the display of my Galaxy S8 and it does get a little distracting when watching
videos or doing basically anything. So that's kind of a bummer. My screen brightness has
always been on auto. I hope Samsung has figured out how to avoid this in future versions of
your phone. I also intentionally never put a screen protector on my phone when I bought
it so I could see how scratched the glass could get with every day use. This is Gorilla
Glass 5 after 2 ½ years. It's got lots of little scratches at level 6, and a couple
deeper grooves at a level 7. This was a real-world 2 ½ year long scratch test.
There's also, you know, normal battery life issues. I've had this phone for about 1,000
days now and I consider myself a pretty heavy user. So the battery life has decreased to
the point where I need to charge it up every night as well as every afternoon. Not a big
deal. I could replace my battery, but that would compromise the water-resistance, and
I'm always around chargers. So I've just left it as is. The biggest issue I have is that
my earpiece speaker is going out in the phone and it's hard to hear people when on phone
calls, and I don't really want to be that guy who's on speakerphone all the time.
Yeah, I could fix any one of these hardware issues by just replacing a component, but
while they are inconvenient, none of them are deal breakers all on their own. If I wasn't
doing YouTube, and my job wasn't all online doing emails, making videos, social media
and all that stuff, I would keep using my Galaxy S8 for a while longer. But since my
phone is a tool for my job, I can justify getting a new one. I have gotten a lot of
questions as to why I don't make my own device clear, since you know, clear is the best color.
There are a few major downsides to modifying your own personal daily driver.
The glass could crack, which is a very real possibility for someone who hasn't done it
before. Glass is glass, and glass can break. There's also the losing your warranty thing,
and more importantly, losing any water resistance that might come with the phone. That's the
biggest thing. Since manufacturers aren't making transparent phones, I've been working
on a way to get transparent phones to all of us while avoiding those pitfalls and I
think we've figured it out.
These are all fully transparent looking phones that have no voided warranties, no cracked
glass, and no compromised water resistance. Dbrand and I have spent months finding a way
to bring these clear phones to you. We call it Teardown, and as of right now, this very
second, we have scans ready to go for almost every major smartphone including the Nintendo
Switch and the Nintendo Switch Lite. I'm pretty excited about this. OnePlus doesn't make their
batteries red anymore, so we went ahead and did it for them with the Teardown skin. The
red battery is back, which adds like all kind of horsepower I'm sure.
It took months to get the scanning and printing process just right...compensating for the
curve that most smartphones have and getting the image up to our standards took quite a
bit of work. Plus we added little different Easter eggs into every phone. Every device
is going to be a bit different because the skin is an exact representation of what's
going on inside of the phone. This is a limited edition drop – only live for one week starting
today since we have to get them all made and shipped by Christmas.
With so many smartphones out there all looking the same, we know that true beauty lies on
the inside, and now the insides are on the outsides. I have a skin covering my new Note
10 Plus as well. You can see here how there's a direct correlation between the speaker grill
and the port on the outside of the phone. As well as the USB-C port with the bottom
of the phone, the vibrator motor, the front earpiece, and even the camera unit. We had
to buy some crazy cool machines to get this level of detail, and every skin is unique
to the device that it's covering. If you're the type of person who always has a case on
your phone, the Teardown skins also work with the dbrand Grip. So you get the protection
of a case while still showing off the insides.
I decided to go with Samsung once again for my daily driver, not because they're the best.
They probably aren't anymore. I'm just used to Samsung and I mostly just wanted a bigger
screen and the triple camera setup. So here we are. The grass isn't always greener on
the other side though. I assumed all of my apps would just start working when I switched
over to the new phone. But I can't for the life of me get my Gmail emails to come in
automatically as soon as I receive them. I've tried everything and it seems like a very
weird flaw to have on a phone that costs $1,000. So a new phone isn't always the best phone.
A clear phone however is the best phone. So go check out my new line of Teardown skins
at dbrand.com. It has all of the perks without any of the risks. Win-win.
Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Thanks a ton for watching and I'll see you
around.