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I expected the Samsung Galaxy S4 to be as delicate as a fresh-baked pastry — it’s really thin, it has a huge screen and hundreds of pounds worth of high-tech components. Surely you’d have to take care of it like a new-born puppy, swaddling it in a case and never letting it out of your sight?
Apparently not, according to a new video from Samsung that shows the kinds of automated stress tests its flagship phone is subjected to before it goes out into the world.
The video shows the S4 being dropped dozens of times from desk and chest height onto a metal floor, being tumbled around in a big rotating bin to simulate falling down stairs, and even being submerged in water. (It’s in Korean, but just turn on the captions.)
Major manufacturers will do these tests on samples from every batch they make to ensure millions of phones don’t go out of the door with serious faults. Some are bound to slip through the net — and Samsung specifically says not to treat your S4 like this — but it makes it more likely the phone you’re spending £550 on will survive for more than a few days.
Indeed, it’ll shrug off much worse than the chaps at Samsung HQ throw at it. My debonair colleague Luke recently put the S4 and the iPhone 5 through a series of utterly monstrous challenges, to see how much punishment they could stand. The S4 definitely proved the hardier of the two, although even it couldn’t see off the truck we drove over it. Its water resistance is particularly impressive, given it’s not specifically waterproof like the Sony Xperia Z.
Watch the full video here, and let me know what you think down in the comments, or over on our robust Facebook wall. Warning — it’s not for the faint-hearted phone fan:
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iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S4 destruction test
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