#Bendgate: iPhone 6 Plus has a bending problem

The iPhone 6 Plus has a case of the bends.

Just days after Apple’s latest device went on sale, users began reporting that the aluminum-backed smartphone bent to a noticeable degree after being carried in their pockets.

As word traveled on social media, the issue was dubbed #bendgate, with the hashtag used about 16,000 times at last count. Turns out there is a downside to having the “thinnest iPhone ever,” to use Apple’s own wording.

The gadget review website Unbox Therapy decided to put the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus to the test in a video.

Sure enough, as Unbox Therapy’s Lewis Hilsenteger grasped the phone from both ends, using his fingertips to push against the middle, the device bent visibly.

“Now we have actual evidence, on camera, not just a picture of a bent phone after the fact, yes, it bends under the force of my hand pressure just pushing on it,” he said in the video, which has been viewed more than 3.8 million times since it was posted Tuesday.

“It’s an aluminum phone. It is going to bend,” Hilsenteger said.

Previous reports of iPhone 6 Plus bending had been supplemented only by photos. On the website MacRumors, a user called hanzoh had posted on Sept. 21 that his iPhone 6 Plus had “slightly bent” after two days of use. Another user called DevinPitcher reported the same.

It’s worth noting that iPhone 5S users also reported that their phones bent after being stored in pockets last year.

And for what it’s worth, Hilsenteger followed up his iPhone 6 Plus bend test with one on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. In the end, he saw that the plastic Galaxy Note 3 was “a tiny bit warped” but that it “survives the exact same bend test that the iPhone 6 Plus failed.”

“Materials like plastic in many ways offer, I don’t know, the best solution for durability in some cases,” he added.

Watch the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 bend test below.

Check out some of our favorite #bendgate tweets below: