OnePlus 10 Pro snaps in half in durability test

The OnePlus 10 Pro is out in China, and while it has some flagship specs, including a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and a 5,000mAh battery, it turns out it might not be the most durable phone on the market. YouTuber Zack Nelson, creator of the popular JerryRigEverything channel, put the OnePlus 10 Pro through his usual durability test, and when he pushed on the middle of the phone to try and bend it, it snapped nearly in half.

See for yourself — the bend test for the portion of the video starts at 6:57 (and that’s where the embedded video below should begin).

When Nelson first pushes on the OnePlus 10 Pro, the back glass begins to crack, and many of the cracks appear under the phone’s stovetop-like camera bump. When he pushes again, those cracks turn into a full-on break, causing the top part of the phone to begin to fold over.

Once the OnePlus 10 Pro is fully broken, Nelson tears off the rest of the back glass to get a look at the inside of the phone. The phone snaps right above the battery, and it seems that OnePlus’ placement of the cell — whose top edge lines up with the volume button on the side — helped create the perfect conditions for Nelson to crack it in half with his bare hands. There was also a thinner metal exterior around the phone than he expected, which may have allowed for the phone to break as well.

While the exact reason for why the OnePlus 10 Pro broke when Nelson applied some force is unclear, it’s worth noting that he was going out of his way to try and push the phone to its structural limits. It’s unlikely that many average users will try to break their phone in half (please don’t try this at home).

But Nelson’s test does show that the phone is susceptible to damage when bent too far, which is something you should keep in mind if you want to get one for yourself. OnePlus didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the video or if it plans to make any changes to the OnePlus 10 Pro to make it more durable.

OnePlus isn’t the only company to have come under scrutiny for the easily bent devices. Some owners reported that their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones bent — including The Verge’s Dan Seifert — and internal documents released as part of a lawsuit revealed Apple knew the phones were more prone to bending than the iPhone 5S. In 2018, Nelson also found that that the iPad Pro released that year could break when bent, and Asus’ ROG Phone 5 didn’t hold up well in 2021, either.