Whether or not you believe the new Moto Razr’s hinge is up to the job, there’s another lingering question: how well does the phone’s foldable screen survive in your pocket? You might have an early answer. JerryRigEverything (aka Zack Nelson) has conducted a durability test that hints at how the phone is likely to fare in a number of brutal conditions. Some are clearly edge cases (few phones will survive a lighter unscathed), but there’s also a “pocket sand” test to see how it might survive years of the debris that always seems to find its way into your pants. The result is better than you’d think, but not perfect. While the screen is fully functional, one piece of debris formed a bump under the screen while others got into the hinge and made less-than-reassuring crunching sounds.
Other tests are more predictable. It’s not hard to scratch the screen’s plastic surface, and you can break the screen if you bend the hinge backward with a “considerable amount of force.”
These are clearly extreme tests, and you won’t necessarily run into similar trouble if you’re cautious. Still, they serve as a reminder that foldable phones are still quite fragile at the start of 2020. There’s a chance that upcoming phones like Samsung’s reportedly glass-covered Galaxy Z Flip are better at surviving in the real world. Until then, though, you’ll want to be gentle.
