Bendgate is back! Or, at least, that’s what SquareTrade aimed to reignite, posting a video on Friday that showed the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge put to a three-point pressure test against the HTC One M9 and iPhone 6 Plus.
In this test (below), the Galaxy S6 Edge bent at exactly the same point as the iPhone 6 Plus – 50 kilos of force – while the HTC One M9’s hefty metal frame gave way at about 55kg of force (the standard Galaxy S6 wasn’t tested). Yes, thin slabs of metal and glass bend under a lot of pressure. Surprised?
The video made the rounds on the Internet over the weekend, and Samsung fired back with an official statement and its own testing video (below). Samsung’s main point of contention: it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone would ever encounter a scenario in which a point receives 50kg of force with three points of pressure, and that the phones were only tested on one surface.
Fair points there. If anything, it shows how absurd the whole Bendgate saga has been. Indeed, as phones become thinner and thinner, they naturally are less durable – and a freak occurrence could bend or break your device. But how many iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus devices were unintentionally damaged out of the many millions sold? A few handfuls?
That’s not to say that Samsung comes out of this looking heroic; if anything, it just evens the playing field to show that both the iPhone 6 Plus and Galaxy S6 Edge are equally susceptible to very rare instances of extreme force. Samsung says that the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge won’t bend at its testing level of 35.8kg of force, which it says is the point at which five pencils can be snapped at once.
In summation: there’s another sensational video on the Internet that shows expensive things being destroyed, but the results are unlikely to be anything like those of you sitting on the couch with a phone in your pocket. Don’t worry too much about it. Enjoy exciting new phones.