I don’t understand why phone makers don’t design the phone with the cover in mind. Make the cover a part of the phone. Nokia had interchangeable covers and it was awesome! There were whole stores with different covers to choose from. I had 2 or 3 different ones and would swap depending on my outfit.
I took my phone out of the case after a while, but the stupid screen goes all the way to the edge, so I keep accidentally tapping things just by holding the phone.
I took mine out of the case recently and it’s almost unusable. The screen goes to the edge like you mentioned. It’s paper thin so my hand doesn’t fit around it nicely for my thumb to swipe around. Lastly it’s slippery as fuck.
My phone case isn’t for protection. It’s for making the phone usable.
Plastic is usually scratchy. Glass is much better about resisting scratches. I believe you’re, right, modem phone glass is pretty flexible. It’s also (usually) coated with something that prevents finger oils from building up easily.
Still, the choice of glass is clearly cosmetic (less prone to scratch, nicer look, premium feel), buy technically plastic presents more advantages, it is lighter, absorbes shocks, fairly durable, much cheaper. To make for the most reliable device it would be better, but we know that’s not a priority for any of the manufacturers, and propably also for many customers.
Honestly, modern phones are pretty durable and screen replacements are pretty cheap.
My complaint is that the glass backs are slippery as fuck. My iPhone was constantly sliding off of tables and shit until I bit the bullet and got a case for it.
I do not agree, owned like 3 phones all of them ending up in cracks, yes I am a clumsy person but I also work in a hangar where at one point my phone screen cracked due to carrying something.
The good thing about the glass backs is it’s quite sticky on your fingers, which is nice. I’d still take plastic or something else instead, but hopefully also sticky. I’d rather not drop my phone at all, but if I do I don’t want it to crack.
I had a coworker who was constantly buying new phones. I didn’t know why until I realized that he didn’t use a case. He didn’t like how the phones looked with a case on them.
Same. I suggested that to him, but nope. Phones also seem slipperier than they used to be, so I feel like the case lets you hang onto it better, keeping you from dropping it in the first place.
I am 25 and I have one of those boomer cases on my phone. (a flipcase) I’ve bought it in August 2019 and it still doesn’t even have a scratch on the screen. Don’t care if I look like a boomer, that thing did cost me about 1000€ and I ain’t gonna replace it just for being careless.
Because how fragile the new titanium body is. Like fragile enough to be able to break the glass back with no tools (you just have to press a little hard with your thumb).
One of friends back in the day would lecture me on having a phone case. “why don’t you just not drop it?” I was like, dude, accidents happen. “I’ve never dropped my phone he’d say.” I swear, like a month after that happened, his friend stepped on his phone and a month after that he dropped his phone when taking it out of his pocket outside a burger joint.
I didn’t have a go about it. He’s not one of those that takes those types of jabs well.
The scary thing, then, is lessons like “Look both ways before crossing the street”. You fail that sort of lesson the hard way, and you don’t get a chance to learn anything.
Yeah. I know people who say stuff like that. I know someone who wanted a convertible car (they were 18). Someone mentioned the greater danger of they flip, and this person said “well I’m not going to flip a car”. We all gave them a hard time about whether they thought everyone who flipped a car did it on purpose. The next year, this same person flipped their car several times (and walked away OK somehow).
Some people can’t comprehend that bad stuff would happen to them.
It is unlikely that an average person flips their car. You have to weigh the pros and cons of it. We take risks all the time, but if we think it’s more beneficial we take them. Just driving a car is pretty dangerous alone. Personally, I don’t think a convertible is worth the risk or the cost, but I won’t say no one should get one.
I agree with the message that most of it doesn’t matter since I’ll slap a thick case on my phone, but the sheer amount of broken unprotected screens you’ll see in the wild makes you think.
Makes Me think when are phone manufacturers going to focus less on a few more pixels on the camera and make a phone rugged enough that for routine daily use it doesn’t need a damn case? I’ve never liked cases but now so many phones have Cameras that stick out such that the only way to get them to even sit flat is to level them off with a case. Just make the battery a little bigger and thicken the backing of the actual phone! Also raise the titanium bezel just 1mm and the glass is much less likely to ever make direct impact.
They tried that already with the samsung s7 active. It was a pretty rugged phone by itself but people still insisted on putting a case on it. They then complained about the phone being too big and it didn’t sell well.
Those still broke too easily. I tried out a couple models of the actives, and they would still break. One time I was sitting on the ground and my phone slipped out of my hoodie pocket and it shattered. It fell maybe 3-5 inches tops.
Frankly, if people are shelling out for higher end phones that break that easily, that’s at least partly on them.
Like, I’ve been buying mid-tier Androids for about 10 years now, and I can’t recall the last time I’ve had one shatter, and I’m clumsy as all hell. I’ve accidentally punted this thing across the office once, not a scratch. And as I’m so routinely told by the iPhone and more elitist Android spaces, this thing is supposedly a cheap plastic piece of shit.
It’s so weird they settle for something more expensive but also more breakable. Makes sense if you’re buying glass wear or something, I guess, but a device you keep in your pocket or hand all day? Shouldn’t it be nigh indestructible at that price point?
True, I’ve been using the same mid-tier Samsung for 5 years now. It looks a bit rough but it still works just fine and I’ll continue to use it until it breaks
I mean, phones are already designed to be obsolete pretty quickly to keep you buying more often. Longevity isn’t really a high priority in modern phone design.
Yeah but you could still screw with the software, limit updates, use cheap chips, and shame customers to make sure we all continue to throw our phones in the landfill every couple of years, but I would buy the phone that at least I won’t worry about breaking tomorrow. Phone case culture just seems so silly to me.
i’ve had my current phone for 3 years and it’s been getting maddeningly slow lately. 2 weeks ago i took the case off and it legitimately feels sleeker and newer and somehow faster? or at least i’m better able to put up with the slowness cause it feels new? it’s very odd and i’m frightened at the psychology
The only way to explain it’s faster could be because the case was making the phone overheat. The chipset is made to protect itself by lowering the clockspeed (calculations per second) to avoid damage by heat resulting in being slower at performing tasks.
So maybe the case was isolating the phone so much it overheated constantly and after removing the case it could breath again and keep its original speed.
If you had a chunky case then maybe a sleeker design could offer enough cooling and still some protection. Best of both worlds :)
So this summer it was like 30°C / 85°F at home and whenever I used TikTok or YouTube on my phone it would get really hot so I took off the case whenever I used it. My phone fell down one time (I’m not used to it being so slick!) and that’s why it’s now broken. In the back. Because for some stupid reason it’s made of glass or something.
Note to myself: my next phone should be one of these unbreakable military grade phones.
Inductive charging doesn’t work very well (if at all) through metal.
And plastic is apparently a dirty word (one-time use plastic should be, mind you), even though most iPhone owners are also buying I plenty of Patagonia micro plastic fleeces.
It doesn’t feel like a premium material and it accumulates scratches and imperfections faster. Glass is either fine… or completely broken. Not a good heat conductor either.
I’d disagree. My pixel 3a feels really nice, when I got it I honestly wasn’t sure for a moment whether it’s plastic. It did get a few nicks and scratches, but it looks pretty alright for beeing used every day for three years without case, and me dropping it twice. Can’t say the same about the screen glass
I miss the times where plastic was used in phones. Glass cracks and feels clumsy and insulates. Metal transfers energy from impact to the components inside. Plastic just cracks but at least absorbs some of the energy. And is easily replaceable and feels way better.
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