about the new iPhone 6 smartphones And how they bend under pressure

From there, #bendgate took off on social media with people bending their phones

Blaming tight pants and spoofing the whole story

Consumer Reports wanted to bring some science to the matter

And find out how much force does it take

For a phone to bend and not bend back

So we took 6 smartphones, including the new iPhones, into our lab for stress testing

We used what's called an Instron compression test machine. Right behind me.

We started at 10 pounds of force for 30 seconds, then release

The we upped the force in 10 pound increments and noted it when the phone first began to deform

Our test lineup, the iPhone 6 Plus, obviously

Along with its comfortably sized competitors, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the LG G3

We also tested the smaller iPhone 6 along with the HTC One M8

For apple fans still holding on their iPhone 5, we put that one in, too.

We tested 1 sample of each. Turns out,

it takes a lot of force to permanently bend one of these new iPhones

And all the other phones we tested for that matter

Even the phones that bent first, the iPhone 6 and HTC One took 70lbs of force before bending permanently

The iPhone 6 Plus took more punishment at 90 lbs

But the smaller, thicker precursor, the iPhone 5 outperformed both of siblings at our test

The no noticeable deformation until 130 lbs of force

Finally, there was the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3

which sprang back to form up until we applied 130 lbs and 150 lbs respectably

At that point, their screens separated from their cases and stopped working

For comparison, we put a few pencils in the Intron

It took 80 pounds of force to break 4

I've got 4 right hereI've got 4 right here. And I can tell you, that's pretty tough

Alright, maybe 3

And this is what 100 lbs of force look like on a tennis ball, fresh out of the can

One note, a bent phone is bad, but can still function

All the iPhones and HTC One looked beat up after our initial test, but were still working

So we went further to see how much more they could take. As we moved beyond 90 lbs of force

Screens on those phones started separating from their cases

The iPhone 5 held up the longest of these 4, maxing out at 150 lbs of force

Apple's official response is

"With normal use, a bend in iPhone is extremely rare and through our first six days of sale, "

"a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus"

So what's the bottom line for bendgate? Well, based on our comparative here at Consumer Reports

While not the strongest phones on the market, fear of a serious structural design flaw in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus seem overblown

Follow our ongoing coverage of the new iPhone 6's and all of our electronic reviews

at consumerreports.org