Samsung’s bestselling Galaxy S8 is undoubtedly a gorgeous looking phone. Its beautiful ‘infinity screen’, that Samsung calls “A screen without limits”, owes a lot to its almost fully glass exterior.
As you can expect, this also leaves the phone vulnerable. Just how vulnerable, you ask? Well, electronics insurance company SquareTrade Inc. ran a rather entertaining examination, and found that the phone was the most fragile they had ever tested.
They later concluded that this phone was more fragile than any other they had tested: “S8 is the first phone we’ve tested that’s cracked on the first drop on ALL sides.”
TechRax ran its own tests, comparing the S8 to the iPhone 7 in a drop test from five feet.
Dropping the phone from just 3 feet (hip height) resulted in multiple cracks on the body. When the phone was dropped from five feet, the back cracked rather badly, though the gorilla glass screen remained intact.
If there is a silver lining to all this it is that S8’s replacement parts are slightly cheaper than those of its predecessor. It’s a small silver lining though, considering that they are still expensive.
In the end, there is no doubt that there is a price to pay for the S8’s good looks, and it is far less sturdy than the S7. Of course, this shouldn’t stop you from buying Samsang’s latest and greatest smartphone. Just exercise caution. While the gorilla glass seems strong enough to resist scratches and hip high drops, we would recommend you not leave the store without a case to protect the S8’s body.
