What is the motivation behind destroying brand new consumer electronics such as the iPhone?

I don’t mean disassembling an iPhone for research and component information, I mean taking a sledgehammer to a brand new $500 iPhone.

I don’t get it, but here’s a compilation of iPhone destruction videos. Cringe away!

#1 Blending the iPhone

Blendtec, no stranger to self promotion, uses its own product (a 1,500-Watt electric blender) to answer the question “Will It Blend?” The question was posed by master blendologist Tom Dickson for toy Transformers, a can of EZ Cheese (yes, the whole can) and now, the iPhone.

Think their sales are increasing from this $500 stunt? Of course it is. That’s cheap marketing. iPhone flavored Margaritas anyone?

Update: Yes, the blended iPhone is up on eBay (currently $570 with 39 bids), and there’s already a response video proving that the iPhone does not blend.

#2 Old School: iPhone Meets the Hammer

Experienced engineers are hard to come by, but even the brightest masterminds of our world get frustrated dissecting the iPhone to find out what makes it tick. At some point, the urge to rip the phone open and reach inside to touch its guts takes over. And that’s just what they did. Using a standard-issue claw hammer, they went to town. What a bunch of meanies!

#3 iPhone Burial at Sea (iToilet Test)

ars technica has an incredible in-depth review of the Apple iPhone (it is a must read). On the 13th page of their review they perform stress testing on the iPhone. They perform many of the same tests performed by others listed here (shake and bake with keys, drop tests), but they also perform more real world tests, including skipping the iPhone across concrete and dunking the iPhone in the toilet which ends up doing the iPhone in for good. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the page. When you’re done, read the entire article… it is the best review of the iPhone I have found anywhere online. iPhone finds Nemo, tonight at 11.

#4 Condomized iPhone: Water, Key & Pizza Test

This one makes the list not because of the actual destruction of an iPhone, rather the sheer goofiness of it. I’m all about wrapping my phone in an invisibleSHIELD condom (in fact I’m about to do it to mine), but what’s with the pizza? I understand the key test, and the strategically placed water test completely. I just can’t remember the last time I tossed my phone inside a pizza and let it have its way with it. I just wish they did the test with anchovies. Wimps!

#5 PC Geek: Key Shake & Bake, Drop Test

Also not exactly a “kill”, rather a scratch and drop test from the propeller-heads over at PC World. Perhaps the most informative real world test of the iPhone, they prove the iPhone (sans condom) takes a lickin’ and keeps on callin’. Tests performed include tossing the iPhone into a Ziplock bag filled with hungry piranha keys and performing a “Shake & Bake” maneuver, dropping the iPhone on carpet, linoleum floors, and concrete. You’ll find no hammers, condoms, blenders, pizzas or toilets here. Yawn…