Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold Is The First To ‘go Up In Smoke During A Bend Test,’ Jerryrigeverything Says

Google mightiness person yet different Pixel pinch a artillery problem, and this time, affecting nan marque caller Pixel 10 Pro Fold. In a video published today, YouTuber JerryRigEverything, aka Zack Nelson, subjected nan foldable to his accustomed durability tests, but arsenic he’s filming his crook trial — aft having already surgery nan telephone unfastened — nan artillery expands, appears to overheat, emits capable fume to group disconnected a adjacent occurrence alarm, and yet ends up arsenic a charred wreckage connected his testing table.

To beryllium fair, Nelson puts an bonzer magnitude of accent connected nan phone. He primitively breaks unfastened nan telephone by bending it backwards while nan telephone is afloat unfolded, and nan artillery doesn’t swell up until he exerts a batch of unit connected nan surgery portion of nan telephone successful specified a measurement that he’s fundamentally folding nan surface down itself.

That’s not a script immoderate normal personification is going to brushwood time to day. But it’s still different moreover fixed nan utmost circumstances, according to Nelson. He says he hasn’t seen thing for illustration it during anterior tests.

“Surprisingly, successful nan decade that I’ve been durability-testing phones, I person ne'er had a smartphone detonate before,” Nelson says. “The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is nan first telephone to spell up successful smoke.” And while he notes that this is an “extreme test,” he adds that “I’ve besides subjected each mainstream smartphone made successful nan past 10 years to these nonstop aforesaid tests. And this is nan first clip I’ve ever had 1 neglect truthful spectacularly to nan constituent wherever my occurrence siren is going off.”

Google didn’t instantly reply to a petition for comment. But this isn’t nan first of Google’s artillery issues this year: nan institution updated the Pixel 6A to “address a imaginable artillery overheating risk,” and it besides pushed an update to the Pixel 4A to “improve nan stableness of their battery’s performance.”

“As melodramatic arsenic a artillery occurrence is, we don’t deliberation this is needfully a motion that thing is incorrect pinch nan Pixel 10 Pro Fold design,” iFixit’s Elizabeth Chamberlain tells The Verge. “The anticipation of thermal runaway is conscionable a reality of Li-ion batteries. Looks for illustration Zack astir apt didn’t discharge nan artillery earlier opening up nan telephone (most caller phones person 60%+ complaint retired of nan box). We usually urge discharging a artillery beneath 25%, but pinch nan utmost stresses Zack places connected devices, that whitethorn moreover beryllium excessively high.

Chamberlain adds that “thermal runaway is fundamentally a section short circuit, and it is astir apt to hap erstwhile you break done nan insulating layers of a jelly roll-style battery.” She besides pointed to a post and a video from iFixit astir batteries catching fire.

Nelson put nan Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s IP68 particulate guidance to nan test, too. While Google has called nan telephone its “most durable foldable yet” and highlighted the benefits of nan phone’s gearless hinge, Nelson pours immoderate particulate correct onto nan hinge and opens and closes nan phone, resulting successful immoderate sickening crunches arsenic particulate gets stuck inside. “This is benignant of embarrassing,” Nelson says.