00:00I was pretty shocked when I saw that Google left the weak antenna lines of the Pixel Fold in the
00:05same spot again for the third generation in a row. The original Pixel Fold snapped at the antenna
00:12lines right next to the hinge. And again on last year's Pixel 9 Pro Fold, it snapped right along
00:18the same exact antenna line. This is like Vader building a third Death Star with the exact same
00:24exhaust port. Or Voldemort hiding all seven horcruxes in Harry Potter's closet. Or maybe
00:31Superman mailing kryptonite to all his arch nemesises on their birthdays. Henry Ford said the
00:37only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. And I'm not saying that Google hasn't
00:42learned nothing, nor am I saying that a durability test is the only decision by which to base your
00:47phone buying experiences off of. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over
00:53and expecting different results. You don't got to be Einstein to realize that after the first two
00:58catastrophic failures, it might be time to move that antenna line. But here it still is, front and
01:05center, and I think it's going to fail again. But first, the scratch test. I'm a fan of the folding
01:10phone form factor, even though they aren't ready for my personal lifestyle just yet. I've got dirty hands
01:16and I do dirty projects quite often. And I don't have confidence that a folding phone can be the tool
01:22that survives life with me. The front slab of glass is Gorilla Glass Victus 2 though, and we see our
01:28normal scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. I'll pull off the Mohs scale of hardness
01:34paper since we'll need it for that inner screen. The 10 megapixel front face hole punch camera is
01:39protected by the same Victus 2 glass, and the earpiece slit is rather thin right up next to the aluminum
01:45frame. Moving to the inner folding screen of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, we kind of already know what's going to
01:51happen. We haven't had any laws of physics broken in the folding screen category recently, and just
01:56like every other folding phone on the market, we see scratches beginning to form at a level 2.
02:02In order to get a screen to fold and flex, it has to be soft enough that a fingernail can damage
02:07the exterior layer. That's just how it has to be. One thing I noticed though during the unboxing is
02:13that there appears to be a second hidden under screen camera spot right next to the main 10 megapixel
02:19hole punch selfie camera. We've seen hidden cameras on smartphones before, like on the Red
02:24Magic 10 Pro or the earlier Samsung folding phones, but you know, usually those hidden cameras are
02:31disclosed. We'll have to take a closer look during the teardown, but either way it has a soft layer of
02:36scratchable plastic over both the under screen sensor and the 10 megapixel hole punch selfie camera.
02:42I do like this jade colored aluminum. It kind of glistens and darkens in color depending on how the
02:48light hits it. The volume rocker is also aluminum and removable. The power button is not removable,
02:58but the volume button is easy enough to pop back into place. The top of the Pixel 10 Pro fold has our
03:04upper loudspeaker, multiple microphones, and our SIM card tray. The metal tray has a black rubber ring around
03:14the opening to help with the IP68 water resistance rating. This is the first folding smartphone that
03:19is both rated for water and dust resistance. We will obviously put that dust spec to the test here
03:26in a sec. And of course we still have the two antenna lines up here that we've come to know all too well
03:31over the past two years. The left side of the phone, while open, does not have any buttons on it.
03:36The bottom of the phone has our lower stereo speaker, 30 watt USB-C port, and our microphone hole.
03:47If you notice, the actual microphone hole is much smaller than the exterior microphone opening.
03:52This is to make sure no hardware gets damaged if someone accidentally puts their SIM card removal
03:57tool in the wrong hole. You won't be able to damage the actual microphone or the waterproofing inside.
04:02The spine of the 10 Pro Fold is unbranded. There are no gears inside the hinge this year,
04:10and I'm sure we'll see the inside soon enough. On the back of the phone, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold has a
04:16light sensor in the upper left corner of the camera plateau, then a 10.5 megapixel ultra wide camera in
04:22the upper right side. The 48 megapixel main camera is on the bottom left, and the 10.8 5x telephoto is in
04:30the bottom right corner. All surrounded by the same anodized aluminum material as the phone body.
04:37The only branding on the exterior is the shiny chrome letter G on the back. Zooming in close,
04:43you can see basically a perfect placement of the soft touch glass etching around the G silhouette.
04:48Very nice attention to detail. I'm worried about a few other details on the phone, you know, but we'll
04:53get there soon enough. Google said that this year's 10 Pro Fold is the first folding phone to ever have an
05:006.8 dust resistance rating. The 8 has to do with liquid, but the 6 part of the rating means that
05:05the phone is essentially dust proof, since the number 6 is as high as the rating scale gets when
05:11it comes to dust. And yeah, the screen is probably dust proof, but unfortunately for Google, I can
05:17conclusively say that the Pixel 10 Pro Fold hinge is definitely not dust proof. The crunching of the dust
05:26that is now inside the hinge sounds pretty disturbing. And yeah, the Samsung folding phone sounded pretty
05:33much the same after dust was dropped into their hinges, but they also never claimed to be dust proof.
05:40I've been doing these durability tests for more than a decade now, and Google has to have known I
05:45was going to check on their claim. This is kind of embarrassing. The inner 8 inch Super Actua flex screen
05:52lasted about 15 seconds under the heat from my lighter. This time around we don't see any melted
05:57plastic on the surface, but the pixels are very much dead from that flame. The exterior 6.4 inch
06:033000 nit display fared much better under the heat and lasts at a good 25 seconds without any visible damage.
06:11Speaking of damage, Google says this 10 Pro Fold can handle 10 years worth of folding. That's a decade,
06:18but they don't give an exact number of folds that it can withstand. And yeah, sure, if the phone is only
06:25folded in a vacuum, it'll probably be just fine. But here in the real world where people sit on phones,
06:31book bag squish phones, and little kids exist, the Pixel 10 Fold just ain't going to make it. Having the
06:40audacity to call the Pixel 10 Fold extremely durable during their launch event while not changing the
06:46antenna line locations from the previous two versions that catastrophically failed is an
06:52insult to tech enthusiasts everywhere. This catastrophic failure was entirely predictable
06:57from 730 days ago. For sure, hype up the phone, but don't lie about it being durable if you didn't
07:03change anything to make it more durable. Google tried nothing to beef up the structure and they're
07:08all out of ideas. Not only is the antenna line broken up at the top, but it looks like the two antenna
07:14lines along the left side are also bent. This is by far the weakest folding smartphone I've ever tested.
07:20And it gets worse. Straightening it back out for round two, the battery decides it's had enough.
07:39Surprisingly, in the decade that I've been durability testing phones,
07:43I have never had a smartphone explode before. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first phone to go up in
07:50smoke. Thumbs up for thermal runaway I guess. And for sure this is definitely an extreme test,
08:00but I've also subjected every mainstream smartphone made in the past 10 years to these exact same tests.
08:06That has never happened before. And this is the first time I've ever had one fail so spectacularly
08:14to the point where my fire alarm is going off.
08:19Just something to think about. Don't put an open Pixel 10 Pro Fold in your back pocket or your buns
08:25could get toasted. I don't even think I really have to say it, but the Pixel 10 Pro Fold fails my durability
08:32test catastrophically. We still need to check on that hidden camera though under the pixels on the
08:37folding display, so the teardown must continue. If you're interested in fixing stuff, I'll have my
08:43own folding premium portable toolkit linked in the description. It'll definitely survive more folds
08:49than the Pixel Fold. You can see what's left now of the crispy battery layers. The pouch style lithium
08:55batteries are made up of long sheets of foil that are wrapped around each other. The electrodes are
09:00separated from each other in the pouch, obviously so they don't short out. But since my phone physically
09:06fractured along the antenna line, we must have pinched the layers of the battery together, causing a
09:11short circuit which immediately dumps all of its energy into a self accelerating uncontrolled thermal
09:17reaction. At least until there is no energy left inside the layers to react with. It does look pretty
09:23cool inside. You know, all things considered. The smaller of the two batteries does appear to have green
09:29pull tabs. But even after I'm plugging the battery like a little lego, the pull tabs just kind of snap
09:34off. And if the rest of the phone hadn't exploded already, I'd probably complain about the pull tabs not
09:39being all that great. But Google currently has bigger problems to work on. As for the under screen
09:45sensor next to the actual inner screen selfie camera, it turns out it's just that, a sensor. There is no
09:51lens. This sensor can check for proximity and light, but only as a sensor without any lens on top of it.
09:57There's no way the sensor can take pictures or images like a normal camera would, so there's
10:02nothing to worry about. But maybe if Google decides to make another folding phone in the future,
10:07we'll see them ditch the hole punch at some point and just put an under screen camera. I would,
10:11however, recommend that before Google attempts anything else, they should relocate the antenna lines
10:17near the hinge. Or not. Either way, I'll be here next year to keep them in check. Hit that subscribe
10:22button so you don't miss it. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.
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