It's nothing near the abuse Samsung Electronics inflicts on its Galaxy S5 and other products in the company's pipeline. Phones are dropped on purpose, subjected to heat, dust and water, and zapped with high-voltage electrostatic guns.
I'm visiting testing facilities at Samsung's headquarters, where the company is putting its latest flagship phone through the wringer. The idea is not simply to see how the phones might come through the rigors of human contact unscathed — though that's a big part — but also to figure out how external elements affect longevity and performance.
Some tests are automated, while others involve more personal interaction. For example, devices are placed into a chamber filled with dust to test for faulty circuits. They're dropped in water or shot with a nozzle of water to see if they corrode or go on the fritz. Phones are tested to see how they handle sweat. They're twisted to determine how far they can bend without breaking.
Samsung drops the devices off a platform from various heights and angles, and analyzes them for cracks, loose parts or other damage. It's a good way to tell if they can survive a clumsy owner.
Can they survive the kid who loves to press — and keep pressing — buttons? To test this, Samsung runs an automated machine with knobs that repeatedly press the home button — Samsung won't reveal how just many times — until that button finally fails.
Meanwhile, if you've ever broken a device by inadvertently sitting on it, you'll appreciate the automated butt test Samsung conducts. Yep, the dummy derriere that sits on exposed test phones wears jeans.
Samsung punishes competitor's phones, too, and puts other types of products through automated torture drills. Laptop lids, for example, are repeatedly folded and unfolded to test their durability, an exercise that conjures up images of a chorus line. Similar folder life-cycle tests are done wit! h flip-phone covers.
While many of the tests are about how the phones (and other products) will come through in one piece, there are others to gauge their impact on you and me. For example, Samsung employs thermal cameras to determine if devices are emitting too much heat. It also uses fluids that mimic the characteristics of the human body, which can help tell if the body will absorb too much radiation.
Cameras in phones are evaluated against a variety of measures — color, resolution, flash performance, etc. — with the tests adjusted for changing lighting environments.
Samsung uses spikes of absorbent foam in various antenna chambers to test reception and to determine how other electronic gadgetry may be affected.
Device acoustics are also tested, of course, with loud background noises (cars and trains, for example) simulating environments around the world. It seems noise levels in India or China, for example, differ from levels in Europe or the U.S.
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