The iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy S8 are the two most popular smartphones on the market right now. Both of these spectacular smartphones are rated as ‘dust and water resistant’, but not waterproof.
The iPhone 7, iPhone 8, and iPhone X each have a rating of IP67. The Samsung Galaxy S8 has a rating of IP68. What’s this mean exactly? Broadly speaking, an item with a rating of IP67 “should be able to withstand immersion in water up to 1 meter, or 3.28 feet, for up to 30 minutes” according to TIME. The Samsung Galaxy S8, with a rating of IP68, should be able to withstand being submerged up to 1.5 meters in fresh water for 30 minutes…But what about salt water?
The YouTuber behind the TechRax channel put together this video in which he tested out how these smartphones would respond to being submerged in salt water instead of fresh water. Salt water is pretty corrosive, and it has the potential to tear down a phone A LOT quicker than fresh water. So before I started watching this video I fully expected to see both phones fail. I was wrong.
Both the iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy S8 appeared to work completely fine after spending 30 minutes (with the screen on) inside of salt water. He didn’t exactly do any exhaustive testing when he pulled the phones out of the water, so it’s unclear if anything was awry underneath the hood. But on the surface, both phones were totally fine.