It really might've been better if Samsung had just ignored SquareTrade bending, deforming, and ultimately destroying its latest flagship smartphone. But that's not what's happening. In response to the bend test published last week, Samsung has replied with a blog post slamming SquareTrade for putting the S6 Edge under an enormous amount of weight that the company says "rarely occurs under normal circumstances." Samsung says its internal figures have found that the force typically generated when a person "presses the back pocket," whatever that means, is around 66lbf.
"Our internal test results indicate that the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are not bendable even under 79lbf, which is equivalent to putting pressure to snap a bundle of five pencils at once," Samsung said in its blog post. And yes, you'll see those pencils broken in half in the company's own bend test video. "It isn't easy to break four pencils at once. Breaking five is even harder," the video astutely points out. In the clip, Samsung subjects the S6 to the force that it specified, though never goes far enough to permanently bend or destroy its own smartphone.
Samsung is also apparently displeased that SquareTrade only tested the S6 Edge with the screen facing up. "Some smartphones have different durability in each the front and back sides respectively," the company wrote. "SquareTrade has only tested the front side, which may mislead consumers about the entire durability of smartphones." So, in addition to posting its own rebuttal and bend video, Samsung has formally asked SquareTrade to run its test again — this time on both sides of the phone — and make those results public.
Like Apple, Samsung has apparently felt the need to promptly refute a test we've already said shouldn't give potential S6 buyers the slightest bit of pause. It's even throwing out the same terms like "normal everyday use." Will SquareTrade's do-over end with a more favorable outcome? Maybe. But that'll also keep this non-story in the headlines. Perhaps the better strategy would've been to shrug it off while going on to sell millions and millions of phones.
