Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold became the first smartphone to explode during a JerryRigEverything durability test, marking a shocking moment in YouTuber Zack Nelson’s decade-long history of stress-testing devices.
Known for pushing phones to their limits, Nelson found Google’s latest foldable to be structurally weak and dangerously unstable.
The test began routinely. The cover display, protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, showed scratches at level six on the Mohs scale and deeper grooves at level seven, which is standard.
The inner screen, however, remained fragile, showing marks even from a fingernail.
Nelson noted that while the soft polymer layer scratches easily, it stays mostly safe when folded.
Things escalated during the dust-resistance test. Google promotes the Pixel 10 Pro Fold as the first foldable phone with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. But Nelson’s sand test told a different story.
After pouring sand onto the phone, he found that the inner screen held up fine, but the hinge did not.
He noted that a grinding noise was heard as fine particles lodged inside.
Nelson questioned how the device could justify its IP rating and called the hinge design misleading.
Catastrophic bend test and explosion
The real disaster came during the bend test. Google claims its redesigned hinge can endure a decade’s worth of folds inward.
Yet when Nelson applied force in the opposite direction, the phone snapped in half, not at the hinge but along the antenna lines on the left side.
He had warned Google to relocate these weak points after the Pixel Fold and Pixel 9 Pro Fold failed in the same spot.
When Nelson tried to bend the damaged device further, the battery caught fire. “The battery decides it’s had enough,” he said.
Smoke billowed from the broken frame as the Pixel 10 Pro Fold became the first phone in his series to ignite on camera.
Nelson later explained that the explosion happened after the antenna lines pinched the battery layers together, causing a short circuit.
The resulting thermal reaction unleashed the battery’s full energy in one violent burst.
He compared Google’s decision to reuse the same flawed antenna design to “Darth Vader building a third Death Star with the same exhaust port.”
Google’s durability claims questioned
Despite the destruction, Nelson continued his teardown. He discovered that the rumored under-display sensor was not a hidden camera but a proximity and light sensor.
His verdict was blunt: “By far the weakest folding phone I’ve ever tested.”
The YouTuber accused Google of overhyping its hardware durability. “Having the audacity to call the Pixel 10 Fold extremely durable… is an insult to tech enthusiasts everywhere,” he said.
The Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s failure highlights a recurring issue.
For the third year in a row, Google’s foldable design has broken at the same structural weak point.
With this latest incident ending in an explosion, the company faces growing scrutiny over whether it is truly learning from past mistakes.