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The Galaxy S8 is a beautiful phone, but it's also extremely fragile

You may want to reconsider if you weren't planning on getting a case for the Galaxy S8.

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Samsung's new Galaxy S8 is mighty tempting with its gorgeous design.

However, with beauty comes compromise, at least when it comes to the Galaxy S8's durability.

Two YouTube channels, SquareTrade and JerryRigEverything, perform durability tests on new smartphones, and the Galaxy S8 was certainly not going to be left out.

They found that the Galaxy S8 was fragile in big impacts, but its screen stood up well against scratches. SquareTrade also found some issues with the Galaxy S8's water resistance.

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Check out the results of their tests:

SquareTrade dropped both Galaxy S8 models — the S8 and S8 Plus — on their fronts and backs from a height of 6 feet.

It found that both Galaxy S8 models cracked on the front and back on their first drops.

The previous Galaxy phones, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, weren't much less fragile either. SquareTrade found that the S7 cracked on the first fall on its front and the S7 Edge cracked on the second.

Still, the Galaxy S8 is the first phone that SquareTrade tested that cracked on both sides during the first drop test.

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Six feet is probably a taller-than-average height for people to drop their phones from, but the Galaxy S8 still fared poorly compared with other phones in SquareTrade's tests. The more likely scenario would be between 3 and 4 feet, and it's unclear how well the Galaxy S8 would fare.

SquareTrade also tested the Galaxy S8's rated water resistance and found that the audio was muffled and distorted after the test.

That doesn't bode well for the Galaxy S8's water resistance. It's rated with IP68 water resistance, which means it should have withstood the 30-minute immersion in 5 feet of water, but that wasn't the case in SquareTrade's test. It's unclear if the audio problem was temporary or permanent.

Next up, YouTuber JerryRigEverything tested how well the Galaxy S8 stood up to scratches.

He said the Galaxy S8's screen had a hardness of 5 before he was able to scratch it — which means it's pretty resistant to scratches — and could resist scratches from loose coins or keys in a pocket.

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That's on par with the Galaxy S7 screen's scratch resistance.

JerryRigEverything also found that the camera was resistant to scratches from a box cutter, which is impressive.

The fingerprint scanner, on the other hand, didn't do so well against the box cutter.

However, he found that the fingerprint scanner still worked fine despite the scratches.

The metal sides of the Galaxy S8 are likely to scratch.

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JerryRigEverything's test is a little extreme, as you're unlikely to subject your Galaxy S8 to a box cutter, but the phone is still likely to get light scratching from daily use — expected for any phone with metal sides.

Based on these tests, we'd suggest you buy a case for your Galaxy S8, but you don't necessarily need a screen protector.

Just not this case ...

Check out SquareTrade's video for the full rundown.

And here's JerryRigEverything's video. Warning: It's hard to watch expensive smartphones under the knife!

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