The first Essential Phone durability test reveals an incredibly strong phone [Video]

The Essential Phone is a device full of potential, and as I’ll detail in my full review this week, most of that potential is in the hardware. Andy Rubin’s startup has pulled no punches here, and that includes using materials that you don’t often find even in the high-end smartphone market. Is the nearly bezel-less phone still durable, though? Thanks to JerryRigEverything, we finally know the answer is a definite yes.

Many flagship devices today are built from aluminum and glass, but the Essential Phone ditches that in exchange for titanium and ceramic. These two materials are meant to improve the phone’s durability, but so far, most reviews haven’t quite tested that out. Today, YouTuber JerryRigEverything took the Essential Phone for a spin, and the results were certainly impressive.

Durability tests from JerryRigEverything don’t hold back at all, using tools that scratch, damage, and even destroy quite a lot of phones. In the case of the Essential Phone, nothing more than a few scratches really hit the device.

That started with the Gorilla Glass 5 up front which, as usual, proves to scratch relatively easily, but is still pretty durable all things considered. Flipping over to the back, though, reveals just how strong that ceramic is. It handles scratches far better and is essentially impervious to everyday items that would scratch up other devices.

The titanium frame is also very strong, but it does still pick up scratches from other hard items, but is also strong against bends. The plastic “ring” around the titanium also adds on to the drop protection which helps keep the display and ceramic in tact.

Overall the Essential Phone passes this test with flying colors, as it should for its price tag. If only everything else on the Essential Phone managed to live up to that hardware…