It's always fun to break high-end tech, but sometimes there's a purpose. Electronics insurer SquareTrade performed a series of abusive tests to compare the durability of the Samsung Galaxy S4 against its main competitor, the Apple iPhone 5, as well as its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S3.
Overall, the iPhone 5 outperformed the Samsung phones, while the Galaxy S4 was slightly more fragile than the older Galaxy S3.
All three phones were dropped on their corners from four feet onto a concrete surface, but only the iPhone survived without a cracked screen.
The iPhone also gripped a table better, sliding less on a table than either Samsung phone.
All three phones performed poorly on size tests, requiring two hands to use and hold properly.
In the dunk test, all three phones were submerged underwater while playing a YouTube video. After a few seconds, the speakers on the Galaxy S3 gave out, but neither the iPhone 5 nor the Galaxy S4 seemed worse for wear.
SquareTrade rates phones for durability on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least fragile and 10 being the most. The iPhone 5 received a 5, while the Galaxy S3 got a 6.5 and the Galaxy S4 came in last with a 7. See the results below for yourself.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 features a 1.6GHz eight-core Exynos 5 Octa processor or a 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor (depending on country), 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 1920x1080 Full HD AMOLED display at 441 ppi, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video, a 2-megapixel front facing camera, internal storage between 16 and 64GB, an SD card slot that can accommodate an additional 64GB, a polycarbonate body, Smart Pause and floating touch tech and runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
The Apple iPhone 5 features a 1.3GHz dual-core Apple A6 plus processor, 1GB of RAM, a 4-inch 1136x640 display at 326 ppi, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video, a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera with 720p HD video, up to 64GB of internal storage and runs Apple's proprietary iOS 6.1.3 operating system.
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