Can the strength of titanium really protect your phone?
Let's put it to the test with the new essential phone.
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Say cheese.>> Cheese
Your precious smart phone goes with you everywhere, but one fake spill and you're screwed.
Even if your phone is a shatter resistant screen, you could still wind up with the cracked back or chewed up- Corners, but the new essential phone from former Android boss Andy Ruben, claims it's got the fix.
A titanium case that they say won't scratch, dent, or bend.
Add a ceramic back and a Gorilla Glass 5 front and they say you don't even need a case for this phone.
Big words, right?
Let's see if this sucker can take the punishment.
Ever try to put your phone in a purse or pocket, but miss the handoff?
It's probably the most common spill.
So, for our first test, we're dropping from hip height about three feet up.
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That wasn't enough to snuff the Essential.
How about a quick selfie?
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So we just dropped the Essential phone from six feet and the ceramic back and glass up front are still in good working order.
No cracks or scratches there.
However, the titanium frame, the component we thought was gonna be immune to these does have some nicks in it at both of these corners.
It definitely got a little bit scratched in there and I don't seem to be able to buff that out.
That's definitely a scrape.
Across each of these corners, that's gonna leave a little bit of mark on your phone.
When it was bouncing off the ground, we even got a little bit more damage on the front bumper as well.
After two drop tests, our phone is crack free, but not dent proof as promised.
SO how much abuse can it really take?
Can it survive a tumble down a jagged industrial staircase?
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So the first thing I see here is a lot of scuffing down this edge, especially here up front.
We took off a bunch of that plastic coating.
A little bit here on the glass, but that looks like it'll brush right off.
Let's see how much this.
Is gonna come off.
Now they've definitely carved some notches in there, and then on the [UNKNOWN] the titanium around back, there's a lot more.
You can definitely feel some pocketing there in the corner.
I can feel some little notches in there, and there's a little bit more back here where we hid it earlier.
We've carved a little bit of a deeper notch back there as well.
Overall though.
I mean it was still dark, ceramic is fine, the glass is fine, this phone is fully functional.
Let's try that a second time.
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Surprisingly I could let second staircase tumble.
A ceramic back is Is still intact, but I got some bad news, this phone is toast.
Screen is completely shattered, not just the glass but the LCD underneath, and while we can still look through the Essential's camera a little bit, I'm not gonna be using this phone any time soon.
Since we have come this far, let's see what it takes to crack that ceramic back, which unlike glass, Has survived all out tests so far.
Be warned what you're about to see is ridiculous and not something you should ever try yourself.
The only reason we're doing this to crack that ceramic.
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So, how bout a little carpentry?
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We'll just get the phone to hammer these nails.
Why don't we?
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So our nails aren't really staying in but we did finally manage to crack the ceramic back folks.
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We dropped it from three feet, we dropped it from six feet.
We dropped it down two sets of jagged staircases and hammered in some nails for good measure.
What did we learn here?
Essential's claim of a dent-free, blemish-free titanium frame isn't quite there.
We were able to put some pits into the frame and some dents after just a few drops.
However, the ceramic back and gorilla glass screen did survive longer than we thought.
It took a pretty good tumble without breaking right away.
So if you wanna go caseless, it's a possibility.
