Gadgetory

there is only one pixel in this entire 4k video that we care about and that's the Google pixel the latest phone by Google it could very well be one of the best phones of 2016 especially since the note 7 just explosively dropped out of the running last year's Google phone the Nexus 6p did not do so well during my durability test so let's see how this newcomer holds up the pixel seems like a combination of all the other flagships morphed into one we have the angled edges of the HTC 10 the antenna lines from the iPhone 6 the glass panel from the galaxy s7 and the rear fingerprint scanner from the LG v20 kind of like they all decided to morph into the Megazord of cell phones let's start with the scratch test I have a set of picks that tell me where the screen falls on Mohs scale of hardness a plastic screen like the droid turbo 2 would scratch at level 3 a sapphire screen would scratch at an 8 or 9 and glass typically starts to scratch at a level 6 which is exactly where the Gorilla Glass 4 on the screen falls you can see the scratch at level 6 and a deeper groove with a much harder level 7 pick this is totally normal so no surprises yet this also means that the front 8 megapixel camera is protected by the same glass no buttons at the bottom to check so let's look at the earpiece this is the first thing that surprised me the earpiece mesh is made of cloth unlike the metal or plastic speaker grilles on other phones it'll be interesting to see how this affects call quality over time if you ever need to clean out your earpiece because of dirt or makeup getting inside that little slot make sure not to puncture it ripped cloth over a speaker does not sound too good the rear twelve point three megapixel camera is protected by the back glass panel so it should be relatively scratch resistant unlike the plastic camera lens of the Sony z5 premium the back glass panel does seem to be slightly softer than the front glass though my razor blade was able to leave some super fine scratch marks on the really blue panel but if I take that same razor blade and scratch the front glass of the phone it does not leave any marks so keep that in mind when you are playing with knives around your cell phone let's find out what the rest of this phone is made of the really blue aluminum part of the body is indeed aluminum it is not covered by any primer plastic the LG g5 had to use a thick layer of primer to mask the seams but as you can clearly hear the pixel manages to join the glass and aluminum with no extra coverings this blue phone makes for a perfect backdrop for a lovely cottage house just add in some bob ross style mystic mountains and I'm almost finished adding in some key scratches as clouds but the markings rub completely off this really blue aluminum color holds up even better than the iPhone against keys and coins that definitely deserves a thumbs-up unfortunately the deeper scratches do not rub off but remember we don't make mistakes we just have happy accidents on to the fingerprint scanner this part of the phone unfortunately is not glass it feels more like a thin rubberish coating and can be scratched off luckily the button isn't protruding though so I doubt it will get scratched easy in real life even if it does get heavily scratched though the fingerprint scanner keeps working 100% of the time pretty impressive how much damage it can take and still function the SIM card tray power button and volume rockers are all made of metal every touchable surface of this phone is made from a premium material another minor perk is that textured power button similar to what was on the HTC 10 it makes finding the button in your pocket or in the dark much easier I'm liking this phone more and more but let's see how well it holds up to the last two tests the burn test the pixel is using a 5.5 inch AMOLED screen similar to what Samsung uses on their phones this display was able to last about 11 seconds under my intense flame before turning white it never did fully recover from the heat that little white dot is permanent I'm still not totally sure how relevant the burn test is to anything but it was interesting to watch the black pixels of the LG v20 magically recover from the flame test yesterday onto the most definitive part of my tests the bin tests I've tested over 40 phones now some of them built better than others I've only had a few phones catastrophic ly fail and this pixel is not one of them pressing from the back I can get the screen to bulge out just a little bit there is no waterproofing on this phone so nothing is being structurally compromised at this point but when I bend from the screen side of the phone it has zero flex this pixel phone could very well be one of the most durable well-built phones of 2016 the things you should watch out for while owning this phone one is the little cloth covering over the earpiece and the tiny scratches on the back glass panel there won't be any fragile volume button crinkling issues like there were with the Nexus 6p overall I'm very impressed with this phone my shelf of shame playlist has all of the phones that spectacularly failed my durability tests so check that out and hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of my future reviews I check build quality on purpose so you won't have to on accident my Twitter followers found out the results of this test before the video was posted so follow me over there if you want to stay in the loop thanks for watching I hope to see you around