A lot of people still believe foldable smartphones are inherently much more fragile than mainstream slab-style devices. This is despite the fact that foldables have by now had half a decade to evolve and overcome their growing pains. But the question lingers: are foldables fragile?
We decided to find out for ourselves, by subjecting the Honor Magic V3 to a suite of durability tests. Let’s see, once and for all, if foldables really are behind slab-style phones in this very important regard. If you’re ready, grab some popcorn and hit Play below.
So here’s what went down. We tested the water resistance, first in terms of immersion and then its ability to withstand water pressure. Then, we put it in a washing machine to verify a claim by Honor that it can survive something like this with no issue. Turns out, it was true. Sadly we didn’t have a hydraulic press handy to verify the other in-house test by the marker.
We then froze the Magic V3 inside a block of ice, to test its ability to withstand temperature extremes. The phone passed all of these tests with flying colors. We tried to scratch the folding screen’s applied plastic protector, and, well it did scratch, very easily, with fingernails only. It was just the replaceable protector, though, so not as bad as it sounds.
The Magic V3’s hinge probably got the worst treatment. We made it carry a 5kg weight, and it didn’t budge. We then used the phone as a hammer, denting it a little bit – but not impacting the normal operation. And finally we did some drop tests and we’re not going to spoil these for you – make sure you watch the video until the end to see the results.