How To Keep Scratch Off My Moto Z2 Force Screen

At present playing: Watch this: We dropped the Moto Z2 Force like it'south hot

3:40

Twenty-8. That'south how many times we dropped the Motorola Moto Z2 Force to test the claims of its shatter-resistant screen. ShatterShield, the name for Motorola's hardcoat layer, promises that the display won't shatter or crack when dropped at a height of 4 or 5 feet.

And it didn't, even after smacking it face-down nearly 30 times full against wood, plexiglass, ceramic, concrete and rock. That doesn't mean the screen emerged scratch-gratis. In fact, the surface was festooned with scratches, gouges and pitting, specially after hitting difficult onto concrete and skidding and tumbling over rocks.

Since the outermost surface isn't glass, the screen is still completely usable after dinging it up; you won't slice your finger the fashion yous tin can on an particularly bad glass screen crack.That said, some gouges were so deep, the peeled-dorsum parts of the summit layer do rough upwardly the surface and would go far the way. Hopefully most people won't be every bit butterfingered equally we intentionally were, but the outcome could happen.

Motorola advertises that ShatterShield has a four-year warranty, and a screen replacement costs $30 on the Z Forcefulness and Droid Turbo 2, two other phones that also used the material.

Here's what nosotros constitute in our tests.

The Z2 Force after 28 drops. The first major scuff, at the superlative correct border, came from smashing face-down onto the sidewalk.

Josh Miller/CNET

Forest

We wanted to establish a baseline, so we started by dropping the Moto Z2 Strength face up-downwardly on a wooden floor in our office, from three, 4 and 5 feet (nosotros repeated some tests). Along the manner, we noticed some subtle damage along the edges. The material looked similar it was starting to ever-so slightly pull away from the phone'south aluminum frame, just it didn't completely separate.

Ceramic

Stop pretending you don't accept your telephone into the bath; nosotros know you do. And we besides know that the ceramic tile flooring in many bathrooms is particularly device-slaying. We knocked the Z2 Force off the bath sink a few times, 3 feet high, and off a paper towel dispenser twice, nigh 5 feet. It survived both scenarios.

Concrete

Holding a phone in one manus while glamming it up for the photographic camera can be bad-mannered, and when grips are bad-mannered, phones tin take a tumble. We fumbled the Z2 Forcefulness at unlike selfie heights onto the sidewalk and the hard plaza of CNET'due south San Francisco headquarters. On the ninth drop (out of all 28), the screen got its get-go major ding, a scrape on the phone's superlative right corner that peeled away a portion of the ShatterShield topcoat. No other scrapes in subsequent drops.

Plexiglass

We gear up up a layer of hard plexiglass between two boxes and dropped the phone face-downwards on that several times. This was by and large done to set up a video shot. After the pummeling on physical, the Z2 Force escaped this relatively mild surface casualty-free.

Most of this damage came from skidding and bouncing over stone. Information technology'south scraped up, but scissure-free.

Josh Miller/CNET

Rock

I honey hiking, and taking photos of outdoor walks with my phone. And so our video team traipsed down to the coast to simulate some tumbles onto the rugged sandstone and rocks at 1 of San Francisco's harshest bits of beach. We dropped the Z2 Force ten times in four different spots, purposely saving these most punishing drops for last. Punishing, it was. The loose rocks immediately scratched, scraped and scuffed the Z2 Strength's display -- only the screen was, for the well-nigh role, usable until the damage really added upward. In existent life, y'all'd probably merely drib it in this surround once.

Drop 28: Bonus round

This was a drib examination, not a torture test, so we didn't go out of our way to run across what it would accept to crack the screen. (So no nails, hammers, pickaxes, etc.) But we did want to know what would happen if the phone savage from a greater height, because in the existent world, phones autumn from a variety of heights, not all of them five feet or nether.

We dropped the Z2 Force from a rocky outcropping about xxx feet tall, watching it tumble over more rock to the hard-pack dirt below. It picked upward more dings, but the screen didn't fissure or shatter.

The take-abroad

ShatterShield does what it says. After a beating, the Moto Z2 Force was absolutely roughed up, only the screen upheld Moto's promise.

Is it worth its high $730 price? That's a tougher question to answer. Information technology'due south a great phone right now, but we're on the cusp of seeing the keystone competitors in the phone market: The Galaxy Note 8, the side by side iPhone (or iPhones), the Google Pixel ii and a new LG flagship are all expected to be unveiled before the terminate of October. While the Z2 Force is neat now, it may non be and so high on our list in a couple months.

If you buy the Moto Z2 Force considering of its screen protection lonely, we'd instead recommend buying a case and glass screen protector for the cheaper $400, very good Moto Z2 Play, and put the savings to skillful use.