iPhone 11 Durability Test! - is the 'cheap' iPhone different? By JerryRigEverything

By JerryRigEverything
Aug 14, 2021
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iPhone 11 Durability Test! - is the 'cheap' iPhone different?

The cheapest of the 3 iPhones released this year, the normal iPhone 11, is different enough that it warrants it's own durability test video. You do save $300 by not buying the $1000 iPhone 11 Pro. And today we're going to find out what we lose from that price drop. But let's be real, all iPhones kind of do the same thing anyway. In front of us we have the yellow version which looks like Pikachu and a block of cheese had a baby. The first thing that I noticed about this iPhone is it doesn't have the frosted textured back glass panel.

Interesting. This video is sponsored by Anker. Let's get started. So the cool thing about this phone is that it is capable of 18 watt fast charging, just like the rest of the iPhones. The uncool thing about this phone is that Apple is still not including a fast charger in the box.

They only include the ancient 5 watt slow charger that they've been using since basically the dawn of time. You can check the wattage of your charger by just multiplying the volts and the amps. I'm sure Apple only does this so you'll drop extra cash on the 18 watt charger that they sell for $30. Personally I'm not a big fan of that. Especially when there's a cheaper 18 watt charger from Anker that has the same form factor as the stock wall adapter, but has the specs of the new iPhone 11 Pro charger and only costs $15.99 using that discount code in the description. Anker's charger is basically half the price of Apple's.

It has the same USB-C power delivery port for the high speed charging just like Apple's $30 version. And spits out 3x the power as the one that comes inside the iPhone 11 box. I'll leave a link for Anker's fast charger down in the video description. And thanks to Anker for sponsoring this video and saving us from expensive chargers. Now let's get back to the phone.

I'm getting kind of a pastel sunflower vibe from this yellow... or maybe a slightly dead dandelion. It's got 2 cameras instead of the three we saw in the Pro. But I'll get to those in a minute. Let's start with the scratch test.

Today we're going to spice things up a bit. You know how this works. The Mohs scratch test differentiates between different materials. Levels 2 or 3 would be plastic like on the Galaxy Fold. Levels 6 and 7 would be tempered glass like on, well, every other smartphone.

And levels 8 or 9 would be sapphire. Sapphire is a super hard, near unscratchable crystal used on premium watches. This iPhone 11 scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. Pretty normal. To spice things up a bit, I got a $70 screen protector off Amazon that's claiming to be a Mohs hardness level 9 with 99.99% pure sapphire. That's a pretty bold claim.

And the only way to find out for sure is by scratching it. Now this screen protector isn't made for this phone specifically so let's not worry too much about a neat and pretty installation. I'll make a much longer in-depth video about sapphire here soon since it's a pretty incredible substance. Putting my scale back up again and grabbing my picks, we work our way up through the entire scale, scratching at levels 6 and 7. And moving my way on up towards level 8, and only at level 8 do we start seeing marks on the glass.

I thought for a second that I was also seeing marks at levels 6 and 7, but it turns out I was just seeing scratches from the screen underneath, showing up through the sapphire screen protector. Once I pulled off the sapphire from the phone, it was pretty easy to tell that there was no marks or scratches on the surface until we hit level 8, which is rather incredible considering how difficult it is to make sapphire. Sapphire is premium and costs quite a bit and the protector was $70, but I'll put a link in the description because there's a lot of fake sapphire out there. Speaking of which, let's get back to the iPhone 11. Even though it's 2019 and big notches were last year's thing, Apple is still notching strong across all their new phones.

This has a metal earpiece grill and has the front facing 12 megapixel camera tucked up inside here as well. It still has those slofies and 4K camera that the Pros have so that's a definite improvement over last year's phone. There's the same plastic border as well which makes a good cushion between the glass and the aluminum. Aluminum kind of complains a lot more than steel does when I scratch it. Another difference between the 11 and the 11 Pro besides the slow charger is the water resistance.

This phone is still ip68 but only rated to two meters instead of 4. I talk more about that ip rating in the 11 Pro Max teardown video if you want to know more. The iPhone 11 is still water resistance of course, just not as water resistant as the Pro. The top of this rubber ducky colored phone is made from metal, along with the left side and all of it's buttons. It still has the mute switch which I'm jealous of.

I think all phones should have one of these. The bottom of the phone has the loudspeaker and proprietary lightning port. The back glass panel of Big Bird here is a bit different than the glass we saw in the Pro. Instead of being the frosty material that would sand down metal objects, it's a smooth slab of glass that does nothing to my razor blade. It still costs about $399 to replace if you happen to crack it though if you don't have insurance.

Which is definitely a shame on Apple's part. You've probably noticed as well that this banana colored iPhone 11 is missing a camera. Apple dropped the telephoto camera and left us with the normal 12 megapixel camera up top, with the 12 megapixel ultra wide camera down at the bottom. Each of them is still covered with the scratch resistant material. The dual LED flash is covered with plastic.

Previously, Apple was calling this circular lens material sapphire. But now there is no mention of sapphire on the iPhone spec list which is good because real sapphire would be scratching at a level 8 or 9. Now one thing that is slightly annoying about the iPhone 11 screen is that it's basically the same screen as last year's iPhone XR. Same size at 6.1 inches. Same resolution.

And same pixels per inch.1080P has been the resolution standard for like the last 4 years now. This phone is sitting closer to 720p. Flagship or not, a sub 1080p display is just kind of taking advantage of people who don't understand the numbers. It's a good LCD display, don't get me wrong. I am being nit-picky.

But at $700, 1080p should be a thing. The iPhone 11 cannot scroll Instagram at full quality. It lasted about 12 seconds before the pixels went black and turned off, but then came back and recovered when the heat went away. And now for the bend test. It's time to see if Apple's cheapest phone this year can structurally handle a bend test.

The stainless steel Pro version survived just fine, and this aluminum iPhone 11 so far is no different. It's extremely solid. $700 is still quite a bit to spend on a smartphone. I feel like this is the phone we should have gotten last year in place of the XR. And this year we should have progressed a bit farther and gotten something better.

Apple's Pro phones are finally competing with the flagships, but their budget phones are not quite competing in price or specs with other budget phones. You could say the iPhone 11 is a step in the same direction for Apple. Either way, don't give Apple any more money by buying their fast charger. The 18 watt Anker charger is linked in the description at a fraction of the cost. Let me know what other phones you want to see tested in the comments and come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.

Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.


Source : JerryRigEverything

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