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Apple and Samsung are both heavily advertising the Titanium builds of their latest flagship phones. The Galaxy S24 Ultra and Apple iPhone 15 Pro models both use high-strength metal. However, a new teardown has revealed that Apple trumps Samsung when it comes to the quality of Titanium used on a phone. 2768 Mk Tolerance
YouTuber Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything posted a video about the Galaxy S24 Ultra over the weekend. It focuses on the amount and kind of Titanium Samsung is using on the phone and reveals a few important insights.
For starters, the YouTuber managed to obtain a scanner to identify the S24 Ultra’s metals. The inside structure of the phone is mostly made of Aluminum, while the exterior frame is where the Titanium is at. Samsung is using Grade 2 Titanium on the phone, compared to Apple’s Grade 5 Titanium on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max’s frame.
Grade 5 Titanium is much more durable and stronger than Grade 2 Titanium since it’s an alloy of Titanium, Aluminum, and Vanadium. It is also about four times more expensive than Grade 2 because of its superior quality. So essentially, you should get more durability from the frame of the iPhone 15 Pro models compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Apple also uses a more robust proprietary solid-state diffusion process to bond the Titanium band with the inner frame, whereas Samsung uses overmolding to inject plastic between the Alumium and Titanium, which locks the two metals together.
Machining Tolerances After melting the plastic and Aluminum away from the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s body, the YouTuber notes that Samsung is probably using $3-5 worth of Titanium in the Galaxy S24 Ultra, while Apple is possibly using $10-15 worth of the material in the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro Max. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the added cost of shaping and casting the metal. But overall, Apple seems to be using higher quality and more expensive Titanium on the iPhone 15 Pro series compared to the S24 Ultra.