Having been very fortunate to have toured a Nokia internal device testing facility myself, back in the mists of time, I'm always interested when Nokia (or another manufacturer) brings reliability testing up to date in a new video. In this case, embedded below, Nokia is testing some of its Asha feature phones, but it's still a good watch and a reminder of the sort of hardware testing that has to be done before any phone is allowed out on the general market. 

From the Nokia Conversations piece:

Nokia is renowned for its durable and long-lasting devices. Over the decades, it’s this reliability that gives people the confidence to know that if it’s built by Nokia, it’s going to last. If a device can survive Nokia’s vigorous physical lab tests, there’s a good chance it’ll survive whatever you throw at it.

Before any device is launched, Nokia sends it to the test labs to be bashed, twisted, dropped, drenched, baked and shaken to simulate as closely as it can certain real-world situations.

I've seen enough of these videos now, mind you, that the equipment and tests seem somewhat standardised across manufacturers - we're not necessarily looking at proprietary test equipment.

With the Asha phones below surviving repeated drops, it has to be borne in mind that large-screened Lumia (and Symbian) smartphones are probably slightly more vulnerable because of the extra glass real estate, but even so there will be a healthy degree of testing like this that's deemed appropriate. Certainly, I've dropped my Nokia N8 three times onto concrete without any damage other than a few chips to the aluminium casing.

Your stories welcome if you've accidentally dropped (or drenched) a modern Symbian or Windows Phone, especially if it's from Nokia - did the hardware live up to these ambitions?