By Lonnie Brown / Ledger correspondent
Posted at 12:58 PMUpdated at 12:58 PM
  
That OLED screen on the new $1,000 Apple iPhone X is something to behold. Until it hits the pavement. Two companies had different viewpoints on the same screen this week.
The good: Displaymate, which does exhaustive evaluations of monitors, smartphones and watch screens, designated the iPhone X display as the best it has ever tested.
The bad: SquareTrade, which provides warranties for various electronic devices, labeled the iPhone X as “the most breakable iPhone ever,” based on the design of its display and the fact that it also has a glass back.
Apple enthusiasts had no quibble with the Displaymate ranking, which rated the screen’s color accuracy as “visually indistinguishable from perfect.” It also noted the X has the highest full-screen brightness for OLED smartphones; the lowest screen reflectance; and the highest contrast ratio.
But those enthusiasts played down the SquareTrade assessment that the iPhone X’s screen cracked easily. The insurance group found that the screen shattered when dropped on its front and its back from a height of six feet — and the display also malfunctioned after being dropped.
SquareTrade’s critics pointed out it was in the business of insuring electronics — so it would naturally give things high vulnerability ratings. Plus it was unlikely that iPhone X’s — or any other smartphones — would be dropped from six feet.
But Square Trade wasn’t the only source pointing out that the X’s screen was fragile — even when dropped half the distance. Cnet.com dropped the iPhone X onto a concrete sidewalk from three feet, “or about pocket-height for most people,” wrote Vanessa Hand Orellana, who conducted the test.
The result: “The glass from three of the four corners cracked at different degrees of severity and scuffed up the side of the camera mount. The bottom right-hand corner took the biggest hit and had the largest fracture flanking the corner. ... Not good considering it was the first drop.”
A second drop from three feet produced even more damage. “The iPhone X can probably handle your everyday wear and tear,” the test concluded, “but dropping it without a case is out of the question. We learned it only takes one bad drop to break the glass on this phone.”
Consumer Reports’ initial testing on the iPhone involved five-foot drops, which resulted in “just a few minor scrapes.” But, cautioned a Consumer Reports’ editor, those minor scrapes could result in major costs.
Bree Fowler, CR’s smartphone editor, told NBC News: “The face of the camera, used for the facial recognition technology, is embedded into that front screen. So if you just break the glass on the screen, you’re going to have to replace that camera, too.”
The news report also found the iPhone X screen is the most costly of any smartphone models to repair: $279 at an Apple store to repair; if other repairs are needed, the cost would be $549, the NBC report found. (A cracked iPhone 8 screen would cost $169 to $349 by comparison.)
Test results of the iPhone X reached the same conclusion: If you are going to spend nearly $1,000 on an iPhone X, spend a little more and get a sturdy case for it.
Edgar Dworsky, a consumer lawyer and author of numerous consumer-protection laws, told NBC News that “because of the greater likelihood that the iPhone X will suffer damage if dropped, [those who have butter fingers] may want to consider the damage protection plans offered by Apple, their own carrier, or other companies.”