There are a lot of factors to consider when buying a new smartphone, but one that few people actually take into consideration is a phone’s durability. The HTC 10’s metal casing is certainly a lot more durable that the glass panel on the back of the Samsung Galaxy S7, but it looks like the display used in the HTC 10 can take substantially more abuse than the one Samsung uses in the Galaxy S7.
This is highlighted in a drop test comparison video which pits the HTC 10 versus the Smasung Galaxy S7. PhoneBuff ran the test using a profession hydropic machine to drop the phones consistently. Both the HTC 10 and Samsung Galaxy S7 managed to survive after being dropped on their backs, sides and bottom, but the HTC 10 came out ahead after the first three drops since the glass panel on the back of the Galaxy S7 didn’t make it through even the first drop.
When dropped on their fronts, the glass protecting the displays on both phones shattered. Even with the broken glass, the HTC 10 was still responsive after the drop, but the AMOLED display panel of the Samsung Galaxy S7 was completely useless.
To see how much more abuse the HTC 10 could handle, the phone was dropped a total of 32 times with the last drop dealing the final blow to the phone, making it unusable. We’re not sure who in their right mind would be dropping their HTC 10 this much, but it’s nice to know that HTC’s engineers put in the extra time to ensure its phone would be able to withstand incredible abuse.
One thing to note is that the metal body of the HTC 10 will definitely get scuffed up if you drop it, but those scuffs will be a lot more noticeable on the carbon gray model. If you want a phone that will look better after a few drops, we recommend you buy the HTC 10 is glacier silver.
