00:00So I've collected a little bit of every kind of metal that I could find in my house.
00:04And today we're going to see which scratches are permanent on the back of the regular iPhone
00:0817, and which scratches can be wiped away.
00:11Purely for science of course, and your peace of mind, because knowledge is power.
00:16I have a scrap of bare aluminum, similar to the frame of the iPhone 17.
00:20I also have a tube of titanium hanging around, as people often do.
00:24My grandpa Jerry gave me this silver dollar, so we'll see how some precious metals react
00:29to the back.
00:30This thing is about 90% pure silver, as well as two tiny gold tenth of an ounce gold eagle
00:35coins.
00:36Same thing with these coins.
00:37They're an alloy with about 91% gold, so it's not technically pure, but we can still see
00:42what happens anyway, starting of course with the screen.
00:46We'll see if the same magical ceramic shield 2 behaves as it did on the Air and the iPhone
00:5117 Pro.
00:52Third time's the charm, and if this regular 17 also resists the normal scratches at a
00:56level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7, then Corning needs to win some kind of Nobel
01:01prize or something.
01:03I've been scratching phones for a decade, and I've never seen anything like it.
01:08I mean, look for yourself.
01:09There is a slight smear at a level 6, and maybe a smudge at level 7, but there's no abrasions
01:15on the glass, and Corning has done something really special here.
01:19Laws of physics have apparently been broken.
01:21The glass itself will still break when you drop it, obviously, since glass is glass,
01:26but it is indeed, like Apple said, far more resilient to scratching this year.
01:31The front facing camera and dynamic island is also tucked under the same slap of glass.
01:35It's their center stage square sensor, and hopefully we can get a better look at that
01:39during the teardown.
01:40The earpiece slit is razor thin and contains the upper stereo speaker.
01:46We still have the camera control button here on the side.
01:49And if this phone does snap in half during the bend test, it'll probably be right here
01:53where the material was removed for this button that nobody uses.
01:57The iPhone 17 does not have removable buttons like the recent Google and Samsung phones do.
02:03And we do see plastic antenna lines along the edge of the frame, where signal is allowed
02:07to escape outside the phone.
02:11Without these antenna lines, the iPhone 17 would essentially become a faraday cage, trapping
02:15all the signals inside.
02:17The left side of the phone has 3 more non-removable buttons and a whole lot more anodized aluminum.
02:23There's one more antenna line down at the bottom, along with our USB-C port that can charge up
02:27to 50% in about 20 minutes, along with the lower stereo loudspeaker which the new iPhone
02:33Air does not have.
02:34We also have some IP68 waterproofing metal mesh over the speaker and microphone openings.
02:40And you might be like, hey Jerry, the orange iPhone 17 Pro does not have as much glass
02:45on the back.
02:46So how does it allow its signals and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to escape from the metal housing?
02:51And I'm glad you asked.
02:52Snuggled right up to the vertical sides of the camera plateau is a large long antenna line
02:56that circles the whole camera visor, letting the signal flow out between the solid walls
03:01of orange aluminum.
03:02However, these Wi-Fi signals on your phones or androids are not natively encrypted by default,
03:08meaning that third parties can see some of the information being transmitted.
03:12To scramble your data and keep it safe on unfamiliar Wi-Fi's, you'll need a VPN, like
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04:11Protection is always a good thing.
04:13Making our way to the back of the iPhone 17, Apple has again etched the back glass with
04:17a soft touch, but microscopically rough texture.
04:23It's everywhere except for on the camera bump and the Apple logo, which is still super smooth
04:27glass.
04:28There's some very minor texture bleed around the logo itself.
04:31The edge is encroaching a bit on the Apple logo along the southern border, but overall
04:36it's a super clean placement.
04:37The stainless steel razor blade on my jerry rig knife ranks at about a 5 on most scale
04:42of hardness.
04:43And since the glass on the back of the iPhone is also a 5 or 6, the glass is able to sand
04:48away bits of my razor blade, leaving behind trace specks of material embedded in the glass.
04:53This is more of a material transfer than a scratch.
04:56I still have the buy a big jerry rig knife, get a little jerry rig knife free sale going on
05:00until the end of the month.
05:01The discount is automatic when you add both to your cart at the same time.
05:04But let's not get distracted.
05:06Grabbing my piece of aluminum scrap, you can see the super soft level 3 aluminum is also
05:10leaving some dramatic marks on the back glass.
05:13And these do not rub away.
05:15Obviously not everyone is toting around scraps of aluminum in their pockets though, so let's
05:19jump to something a little more common.
05:21Like a coin.
05:22Nowadays these are made from a blend of copper and nickel, and you can see marks appearing on
05:27the glass, but these are temporary as you'll see in a second.
05:30The brass house key also transfers material to the back glass, but both of the dust streaks
05:35from these common items wipe completely away.
05:38Switching over to our titanium rod, this guy ranks at a most 6, which means that this might
05:42be beyond just a material transfer, and we might actually be damaging the glass.
05:48I say we because if you've watched this far, you're now an accomplice.
05:52But to be fair, titanium isn't something we normally find in real life, especially now
05:56that Apple has shifted its phone production lines back to aluminum.
06:00Finally we have my 4 OTT high voltage copper wire.
06:03I bought about 20 feet of this stuff back when I was working on my electric Humvee project
06:09before I realized there was a difference between peak amperage and continuous amperage.
06:15And I really only needed 2 OTT.
06:17It was an expensive mistake, but at least now we get to see what happens when 99% copper comes
06:22in contact with the textured back glass.
06:24Kind of turns into a powder, almost like a makeup brush for a clinker.
06:28If I pull a solid wire from some Romex, it still leaves some trace dust on the surface,
06:33but thankfully with a little moisture, the copper rouge wipes completely away, leaving
06:37behind no residue.
06:39The 90% silver coin left behind the most apparent marks yet, almost like a silver crayon, but
06:45it wipes completely off.
06:47Thumbs up for that.
06:48The 90% pure gold coin leaves behind trace flakes of gold.
06:54And again, these wipe completely away.
06:56So in reality it's just the stainless steel, bare aluminum, and bare titanium metals that
07:01are unable to wipe off.
07:02I'll dribble some isopropyl alcohol on the glass.
07:05It's a mild solvent, but it's still unable to clean up the metal markings any better than
07:09just wiping them away.
07:11So it's something to keep in mind.
07:12We do have about 100 other solid elements on the periodic table that we haven't tried yet,
07:17so there could be more undiscovered reactions.
07:20And if this video gets more than 2 million likes, I'll try plutonium.
07:23The top camera is a 48 megapixel ultra wide, while the lower is the regular 48 megapixel
07:29sensor, which doubles as a 2x optical telephoto.
07:32Both covered with Apple's version of sapphire on a small glass plateau next to a single colored
07:37plastic LED flash sticking up through a hole cut in the glass.
07:41I think it's interesting that for the first time ever last year, more people bought the
07:45regular iPhone than the Pro iPhone, and I imagine that again it'll be the same this year with
07:49the 17's.
07:51More people are realizing that all phones are basically the same, and what really matters
07:55is how much it's going to hurt when it falls in your face at night while doom scrolling.
07:59Along with of course the hurt of the price tag, this 6.3 inch 3000 nit 120Hz OLED panel lasts
08:06at about 30 seconds under the heat from my lighter before completely recovering.
08:10Finally, the bend test.
08:12It might just be my imagination, but I do sense the tiniest of flexes in the aluminum frame.
08:19Same when bent from the back.
08:21But it's immediately obvious that this less expensive, cheaper iPhone 17 passes my durability
08:27test with flying colors.
08:29The iPhone 17 is a ridiculously solid phone, and if Apple keeps up this level of durability,
08:34I'm going to be out of a job.
08:36At least now we know what leaves permanent marks on the back glass though.
08:39Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the teardown, and thanks a ton for watching.
08:43I'll see you around.
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