Back in early September during IFA, Sony announced its flagship device of 2016, the Xperia XZ. While Sony is known for making pretty solid smartphones, how well does the Xperia XZ put up against a YouTuber’s infamous torture test? YouTuber JerryRigEverything, or also known simply as Zack, tests all kinds of smartphones to its limits so you won’t have to do it yourself.
In a video posted by Zack, he puts the Xperia XZ against various durability tests, starting with the display of the device. Zack performs his usual scratch test on the display with his various picks based on Mohs scale of hardness and like most smartphones which come with a tempered glass display, it scratches at level 6 on Mohs scale of hardness. Next, he tries scratching the 13-megapixel front facing camera but yields no result and he also scratches the earpiece beside it which is protected by a thin layer of plastic. Next up, he scratches the bottom part of the rear of the device which is made out of plastic, and was easily scratched. However, the larger portion of the back panel is made out of metal but it can be scratched too. The LED-flash beneath the camera sensor was easily scratched as it is only protected by a plastic covering while the rear camera which has lenses made out of glass seemed pretty durable when the scratch test was performed on it, leaving no scratches in the aftermath. In comparison, the Xperia Z5 Premium came with a rear camera with plastic lenses, which was easily scratched.
The sidebars of the device are surprisingly made out of plastic and was easily scratched during the test. The plastic is painted on the exterior but once it is scratched off, it will reveal plastic which is unpainted, exposing the color difference. Zack also scratches the fingerprint scanner and when he tested it out later on, it was unable to read his fingerprint. Moving on to the burn test, the pixels on the screen of the Xperia XZ started turning black after 13 seconds, after which the screen fully recovers. In the last test, Zack performed the famous bend test on the device, and it managed to spring back into its original shape after being bent but the plastic sidebars did snap on both sides of the device. If you would like to watch the Xperia XZ being put through the torture test, you may watch it below.