If anything is certain, dropping the Samsung Galaxy S8 on the sidewalk is a bad idea.
The folks over at SquareTrade, a company that offers warranties on electronics and appliances, tortured the Galaxy S8 in a video published on Monday, subjecting it to a series of tests to discover how it would hold up against falls on pavement and other beatings. It found that the Galaxy S8’s glass design makes it vulnerable to serious cosmetic damage.
In its testing, which CNET earlier reported on, SquareTrade started first with a “face drop test,” in which it drops the handset face-down on the pavement at a height of six feet. On just the first fall, the smartphone’s display glass came loose and cracks dotted the screen. It was a similar result on the Galaxy S8’s glass back, which was also dropped at a height of six feet. After the fall, the handset’s backplate had “spiderwebbing” glass cracks and other dings.
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Samsung (SSNLF) released the Galaxy S8 on Friday. The device is the company’s latest high-end handset, offering an all-glass design and curved 5.8-inch screen. It’s designed to compete at the high-end of the smartphone market and costs $750. The Galaxy S8+, which comes with a larger, 6.2-inch screen, costs $850.
Many Galaxy S8 users have touted the handset’s design over the last several days on social media, and the device’s look and feel earned impressive reviews from media outlets. But if the SquareTrade test is any indication, its good looks won’t protect it from damage.
After its drop test, SquareTrade, which has performed similar tests on competing devices like Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, put the Galaxy S8 into a box for its 60-second tumble test. After the test was over, the smartphone’s front and back glass panels were shattered and the glass became loose. The front camera also suffered some damage.
SquareTrade then dunked the handset into five feet of water for 30 minutes. While the smartphone was still operational, SquareTrade said that it suffered from some “audio muffling and distortion.”
Ultimately, SquareTrade warned users in the video that both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ carry a “medium-high risk” of suffering damage due to accidental drops or spills.
“S8 is the first phone we’ve tested that’s cracked on the first drop on all sides,” SquareTrade wrote.
