Researcher Sam Kohl from AppleTrack published the first crash tests of the iPhone 15 Pro on YouTube. Based on his video, the new rounded edges of the titanium frame don’t hold up as well in drop tests as the iPhone 14 Pro’s surprisingly durable design.
In the drop test, the iPhone 14 Pro remained in almost perfect condition until the very end, while the glass of the 15 Pro gave up about halfway through the test, with spider cracks first appearing in the corners. Consecutive drops resulted in increased damage to the 15 Pro’s glass on both the rear and front. In the end, the bottom half of the iPhone 15 Pro display completely failed (only the white pixels were lit), and the rear camera module was completely disconnected from the case.
While the flat stainless steel frame strip on the iPhone 14 Pro absorbed most of the impact, the iPhone 15 Pro’s rounded titanium sides seemed to cause the impact to spread to the front and back glass, causing spider cracks to form. Titanium’s hardness is higher than stainless steel, but this also has the opposite effect, since the less hard stainless steel frame has better shock-absorbing properties. And the elastic and lightweight titanium frame transfers much more kinetic energy from the impact to the glass.
Testers noted that while the iPhone 15 Pro may not be as drop-resistant as the 14 Pro, it still held up well, as it took a few drops on concrete for the glass to crack.
It must be added that various crash tests of gadgets are obviously not academic or scientific, and their repeatability is a big question.
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