When LG announced the G Flex it did more than just introduce a curved display smartphone to the market. They took time and consideration into what people need from their favorite electronics devices, and tried to solve some of those issues as well. One of the cooler features of the LG G Flex, beyond the shape, is the fact that it is touted to have a self healing coating on the battery door, something that left many curious. How well could a smartphone really heal itself after being scratched, right?

Well YouTube reviewer Marques Brownlee or MKBHD was able to get his hands on a G Flex and took some time to showcase just how it worked in real life scenarios. LG has already shown off some marketing material around the self healing powers of the device, but as we all know marketing material and real life tests are generally very different.

First Brownlee started with a set off keys as he said that is what is most likely to come in contact with your smartphone in your pocket or a purse. The keys created some surface scratches after a few rubs, and then he waited. Within a minute or two the scratches were nearly completely gone, and extremely hard to notice by the human eye. Next up he took out a knife and put a much deeper cut into the device. This one only “half-healed” but was still much better looking than any other smartphone could do. Overall he was able to see that while it did work, it didn’t work quite as they said it would.

Coming up with some conclusions of his own Brownlee went on to speculate that in the video they were in a very controlled environment, heat, humidity, etc were all constant and that likely helped the healing powers. Being much colder in the environments where the real life testing was complete, and no control over any of the other things, the tests he was able to show are likely more accurate to what users will see in the real world.

While it may not heal each scratch 100%, the fact that it is able to help them heal at all is a huge step in the right direction. Keeping in mind that this technology is extremely new still, LG has room for improvement to perfect the technology used here and we hope to continue to see it evolve and get better. Hopefully within the coming years this technology makes its way on to even more devices from other manufacturers as well.

[MKBHD]