We all expect our smartphone of choice to be durable to the point where we aren’t worried about sitting down with it in a pocket, or gripping it tightly while playing a game. However, Lenovo’s new Legion Phone Duel 2 doesn’t look like it could handle either of those situations well.
The Duel 2 is a very impressive gaming phone if you look purely at the specs. Lenovo has crammed a Snapdragon 888 5G processor (8-core CPU, Adreno 660 GPU), 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 512GB of storage behind a 6.92-inch 144Hz AMOLED display with HDR 10+ support. There’s also dual batteries, providing 5,500mAh of capacity, and dual fans to keep the phone cool when playing. That also accounts for why the phone has a lump on the back.
Zack at the JerryRigEverything YouTube channel got his hands on the Duel 2 for review and really liked what Lenovo has created, right up until he broke it. At the 8m 37s mark in the video above, Zack demonstrates just how fragile the phone is by snapping it into three parts with minimal bend force applied. The culprit seems to be the antenna line placement, which cause weak spots in the casing as they are plastic set between metal.
Smartphones need to be able to cope with a bit of bending, but it looks as though the combination of heavy, solid components in a three-section phone coupled with a poor design decision regarding the antenna line placement resulted in the Duel 2 having zero flexibility. Lenovo could probably fix the problem with a casing modification, but if you have ordered one of these phones, just remember to be very careful when using it. I won’t be surprised to see a few cases appear to help with durability.
