The iPhone 15 Pro Max is a brilliant phone. We loved it in our review, especially for its powerful camera system. One of the more noticeable changes over last year’s Pro and Pro Max models is the shift to a titanium chassis, however, between the two phones, it appears that the 15 Pro Max is less fracture-resistant than its smaller counterpart.
That is according to JerryRigEverything, who performed his signature bend and snap test on both phones in a destruction video of the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
JerryRigEverything is the type of tech nerd that I really love, for both his phone assembly/destruction videos, and his dedication to explaining things engagingly on-cam (case in point, his walk-around of an EV battery recycling facility).
For the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Zac Nelson (the man behind JerryRigEverything) was excited to get his hands on a titanium phone – a material that he calls “the coolest metal on the planet”.
He makes a really good point in the video by pointing out the differences between grade one titanium (being weaker, cheaper, and easier to machine) and grade five titanium (which is more resistant, more expensive, and harder to craft with), but this is a destruction video, and nothing is safe on this channel.
Nelson starts by scratching the sides and screen of the phone to prove just how easy the paint job comes away and exposes the titanium underneath, an act that I assume Apple fans would consider one of the highest sins (especially for a phone that only just came out), but things get particularly interesting when he performs a bend test.
“Yeah, I’m going to be honest; I did not see that one coming,” Nelson said after snapping the phone, shattering the glass on the back of the device. Nelson noted that this is the same test he has applied to phones in the past, and that this was an abnormal result.
“Most phones do not break. iPhones, especially, do not break, like, ever. And that snap was abnormally quick. Kinda stunned,” Nelson added.
“I’m not sure if it’s because the grade five titanium frame has nearly three times more tensile strength than aluminium, or half the elasticity, but the [rear] glass did not like being pressed or flexed by my thumb… On the first bend, too.”
He then sanded down one of the sides to expose the titanium, and put it against a blow torch, proving that the titanium was, in fact, grade five, by how it reacts and rainbows when under intense heat.
Later in the video, Nelson applies the very same bend test to an iPhone 15 Pro, and under the same pressure, for an even longer duration, the rear glass does not break.
Are you going to be bending your new iPhone 15 with your thumbs? No. Are you going to be putting it against a blow torch? Also no. But JerryRigEverything’s iPhone 15 video is more about testing durability in a controlled environment, and the way that the bend test might manifest in the real world is if you drop your phone on an edge, or if it gets trampled on or run over.
Hey, at least the rear glass is cheaper to repair now.
Image: JerryRigEverything on YouTube
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