Independent waterproof test of 337 smartphone models

Immersion Test

Surely many have observed glitches associated with the effects of moisture on the phone. For example, when due to high humidity the speaker (speakerphone) is turned off or the touchscreen is buggy. Some people think that in drizzling rain it is safer to talk on the phone than in the rain. But the risk of ruining the cell phone is the same in both cases. And the owners of the iPhone 7 need to remember that their insurance does not apply to cases when the smartphone came into contact with water.

In a blizzard, getting a phone out of your pocket is also fraught with breakage. What can we say about the "drowning" of the apparatus with complete immersion in water. But it turns out that many modern phones withstand such a stress test. Roskachestvo, together with colleagues from ICRT (International Consumer Research and Testing Ltd), the International Assembly of Consumer Testing Organizations, published the test results of smartphones for moisture resistance .

Two tests were carried out:

• rain;
• immersion.

In the first case, each smartphone was placed on a special stand in which the rain effect was created. Experts evaluated the performance of the apparatus one, two, and three days after the test. This test passed all the devices.


During the diving test, smartphones plunged into a large flask with water 1 meter deep. There they lay for 30 minutes. Then again, the experts believed the performance. This test passed only models whose characteristics indicated water resistance.

Almost all 337 tested devices passed the rain test well or excellent. Only occasionally there were problems with the speaker, which resolved by themselves when the phones dried out.

Experts identified only six models that coped with the rain test worse than 4 points:

• Sony Xperia XA (3.5 points) - the touchscreen did not work on a wet phone.
• Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE (3.5 points) - the speaker and microphone are out of order.
• LG Q6 (LGM700A) Dual Sim (3 points) - bright spots appeared on the screen and he began to erroneously recognize the headphones.
• BQ Aquaris U Lite (16 GB) (3 points) - a green bar appeared on the screen, which remained after the device dried.
• Asus Zenfone Live (ZB553KL) (0.5 points) - in some samples of this model there were no problems, in others the speaker and touchscreen failed, and some copies completely broke.
• Acer Liquid Jade Z S57 (0.5 points) - either the speaker or the entire smartphone (in all tested instances) crashes forever.

A full immersion test passed 35 out of 337 smartphones claimed to be waterproof. Half an hour under water, only 11 models stood perfectly (in alphabetical order), all of them received maximum 5.5 points:

• LG G6 (9th overall)
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017) SM-A320FL
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (SM-N930F)
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (SM-N950F / DS, 4th overall)
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy S 8 (overall leader)
  

  
  

• Samsung Galaxy S 8+ (2nd place overall)
  

  
  

• Sony Xperia M5
  

  
  

• Sony Xperia XZ Premium
  

  
  

• Sony Xperia Z3 + E6553
  

  
  

• Sony Z5 Premium
  

Two more devices are not far behind the leaders, getting 5 points out of 5.5 possible: these are HTC U 11 and Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) SM-A520F. The first had to be dried with a towel, and in the second the sound became slightly muffled.

Almost all Apple products with declared water resistance received 4 points: eo iPhone 7 (128 GB), iPhone 7 Plus (128 GB), iPhone 8 (64 GB), iPhone 8 Plus (64 GB) and iPhone X (256 GB). Mainly due to problems with the speaker when they got out of the water. After drying, the problem does not manifest itself.

Four points were awarded to CAT S60, Google Pixel 2 (128 GB) and Pixel 2 XL (128 GB), HTC Desire Eye, LG V30 (LG-H930, in 8th place overall), Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (32 GB) and S5 Neo SM-903F (out of sale), as well as a number of Sony Xperia models (X Performance, XZ, XZs, XZ1, XZ1 Compact), Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Dual E2303 and E2333.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 (32 GB) SM-G930F and Samsung Galaxy Xcover 3 SM-388F failed at 3.5 and 2 points, respectively.

On the website of Roskachestvo, you can see the absolute rating of all smartphones according to the results of dozens of tests, not only for water resistance. For example, here are the five absolutely worst smartphones.



Among the leaders there is nothing unexpected - as usual, there are Samsung and Apple.