Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra found to use lower-grade titanium than iPhone 15 Pro Max

As PBKReviews found earlier, the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is a relatively easy teardown candidate, possibly due to a switch to a flat display. Then again, JerryRigEverything host Zach Nelson had more in mind than simply validating that observation, eventually completely and uncharacteristically destroying the smartphone in order to isolate its new titanium selling-point from the rest of its mid-frame.

That part of the new super-premium (and expensive, even with the current offer of up to $200 credit on Amazon) device is in fact mostly made of anodized aluminum, which, as Nelson demonstrated, easily melts away when placed into fellow vlogger Nate from the Internet's ~2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (°F, or ~1,100 degrees Celsius (°C)) forge.

The titanium, on the other hand, did not, and was found to be fused to the other metal via a thin "intermediary" layer of plastic as a result of a technique called over-molding, as opposed to the fancy solid-state diffusion method adopted by Apple for the iPhone 15 Pro series.

JerryRigEverything also partnered with the firm Moxtek, credited with scientific contributions to the Mars Rover project, to subject the S24 Ultra's frame to some X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis, as with the iPhone 15 Pro Max in a previous clip.

Moxtek's XRF scanner showed that the former had titanium of a grade 2 or 3 at best, whereas the latter's metal had gone up to grade 5. Then again, the YouTuber seemed to reveal that the frame of the Galaxy S24 Ultra was a little thicker than that of the similarly charred iPhone.

In addition, Nelson also neglected to weigh either group of frame remnants. However, he concluded that Samsung "used about $3 to $5" worth of the high-end metal, whereas Apple splashed out for "about $10-$15" of titanium per 15 Pro Max unit.

Nevertheless, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has proven itself one of the most durable top-end smartphones of 2024 thus far, upgrading a classic tag-line for the first time ever in the process.