- The Google Pixel 10 battery started smoking during a durability test
- The phone also broke on a weak antenna line.
- And it failed to demonstrate its supposed resistance to dust.
The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is sold, among other things, for its durability. It’s the first foldable with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, and Google claims it can survive up to ten years folded. But despite these supposed merits, the 10 Pro Fold just performed extremely poorly in a durability test.
JerryRigEverything put the Pixel 10 Pro Fold through its usual battery of tests, and in the process of folding the phone, one of its antenna lines broke. But worse than breaking, while I was righting the phone, the battery started smoking so much that it even set off a smoke alarm.
In about a decade of testing almost every mainstream phone, this is the first time a phone has fizzled out for JerryRigEverything, and while they didn’t expect that to happen, they also weren’t surprised that it broke along the antenna line, because the two previous foldable Pixels had the same weakness, one that Google has apparently done nothing to fix.
Look
One of the worst results in history.
JerryRigEverything described this result as a “catastrophic failure,” comparing the weakness of the antenna line to “building a third Death Star with the exact same exhaust port.”
But while the cracked screen and smoking battery are the biggest faults here, they’re not the only ones, and the YouTuber also discovered that, despite Google’s IP68 claims, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s hinge can get stuck with sand, leading them to believe that it’s just the screen that’s actually dustproof (as something with an IP68 rating should be).
Of course, JerryRigEverything’s heavy-duty tests don’t necessarily reflect the demands of everyday use, but if you were planning to buy the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold based on any sort of durability credentials, you’ll want to be very careful not to bend it too much when unfolded.
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