Very Blue Google Pixel goes through the trials: fares well in scratch and bend tests

Fresh out of the oven, the Google Pixel (Very Blue version) goes through the torture chamber, enduring scratch and bend tests, and getting burned with a lighter. Let’s see how Google’s brand new Android flagship fares in these trials.

The Pixel phones have shunned away from the new Gorilla Glass 5, in favor of the tried and true Gorilla Glass 4, which protects the screens of the devices, but not the glass panels on the back. As with most glass screens, these too fall somewhere between 5.5 and 6 on the Mohs scale, which makes them sturdy enough not to get easily scratched by keys, coins, other common pocket-garbage, and even some types of razorblades. The glass panel on the back, however, seems a bit softer than the Corning Gorilla Glass up front, exhibiting light scratches when put to the blade of a paper knife.

The body of the Pixel is aluminum through and through and fares quite well in the scratch tests, exhibiting only light scuff marks when scratched with a key, which are easily wiped away with a finger, leaving no traces behind. The knurled power button and volume rocker are also made of aluminum and fare similarly well as the rest of the Pixel’s body. The fingerprint scanner seems to be covered in a thin rubber-like coating, which can be scraped off fairly easy, but the scanner itself continues to work without hesitation and hiccups even after the overly dramatized scratch test.

Surprisingly, the earpiece mesh is made of cloth, unlike the plastic or metal speaker grills found on most other smartphones, so keep that in mind when cleaning your earpiece, as the cloth may be fairly easy to puncture with sharper objects.

Finally, we get to the bend test, and the Pixel fares quite well here, too. Applying pressure from the back makes the screen bulge out a notch, while bending from the front, the phone exhibits zero flex. We’d say the Pixel XL might be a bit more “bendy” in this trial, given its larger footprint and thin profile, but we’ll have to wait and see.