Watch: Pixel 10 Pro Fold failed test so badly its battery blew up

We know you might only be here for the fireworks. If so, skip to the 7:20 mark in the video above.

According to JRE, the explosion happened after the phone snapped at one of its antenna lines, which pinched the pouch-style battery layers together and caused a short circuit. That quickly led to a thermal reaction that dumped all of the battery’s energy in one uncontrolled burst. It’s the first time in his decade of stress-testing all of the mainstream phones that one has actually gone up in smoke.

In his view, that failure was made all the more predictable because Google left the same weak antenna lines in the same spot for the third generation in a row. Both the original Pixel Fold and last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold failed along those same lines. He went on to compare it to Darth Vader building a third Death Star with the same exhaust port.

The IP rating was also called into question before the explosion. While the company claimed the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first foldable with a fully sealed, IP68-rated hinge, JRE’s sand test told a different story. After pouring the course mixture onto the device, he found that fine particles made their way inside the hinge, producing what he called “disturbing crunching sounds.” He concluded that the screen is probably dust-proof, but “the hinge definitely isn’t.”

By the end, he branded the Pixel 10 Pro Fold “by far the weakest folding phone I’ve ever tested.” The combination of repeated structural flaws and marketing that hyped durability didn’t go down well either: “Having the audacity to call the Pixel 10 Fold extremely durable… is an insult to tech enthusiasts everywhere.”

Despite the catastrophic ending, JRE kept going long enough to confirm that a mysterious second sensor under the folding display wasn’t a hidden camera, but rather a proximity and light sensor. His main takeaway was that before Google attempts another Fold, it should probably start by moving those antenna lines somewhere else.