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Comment by eridius | Hacker News Reader

Small effort? According to Consumer Reports, it takes 90 lbs of force to bend an iPhone 6+. That's not small effort. That video just shows the guy was prepared and willing to push as hard as he could. Replace that iPhone 6+ with practically any other modern piece of electronic equipment and he'd probably have damaged that too.

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In another thread on HN, the CR report was taken to task for not applying pressure near the weak point. In this video, the guy does apply pressure there - one of his thumbs is behind the volume buttons where most of the bent photos show a bend. The CR report applies the force in the middle of the phone.

I saw an interview on Bloomberg TV with both the Unbox Therapy and Consumer Reports guys. Consumer Reports admitted that they did not specifically apply pressure to the part of the phone that that Unbox Therapy did. There are titanium reinforcements in the phone, but they end near where the volume buttons are. That is why the Unbox Therapy guy was able to do what he did without much force, while Consumer Reports found it to be much more difficult. CR was pressing against titanium, and UT against aluminum.

So, if you apply pressure to the right (wrong) part of the phone, on purpose or accident, it will snap like a twig. That's just reality. Deal with it.

That said: if you are more interested in using your 6 Plus than in bending it, buy a rigid case. Problem solved.

He did try another phone, but he couldn't bend it. Was he trying as hard? Meh, dunno. But CR should that 6+ was at least 50% easier to bend than some competition phones.

What other phone did he try?

Not all phones take the same pressure. But the iPhone 6+ is hardly the weakest of the lot. Consumer Reports lists it as more durable than the HTC One (90 lbs for deformation of the 6+ vs 70 lbs for the HTC One), and I don't think the HTC One is generally considered to be a flimsy phone (Consumer Reports actually says it's "largely regarded as a sturdy, solid phone").

The Moto X.

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