"1 and 3 - that's their ages rather than their names"

Maybe it's still too early in the morning for me, but I laughed at that way harder than I should have. Haha, thanks for that.

If it were their names, imagine the fun in explaining what happened to 2.

And in a couple years, while introducing them, "Here are our children, 1 and 3. 1 is 3 and 3 is 5."

Reminded me of that old verse (best said out loud):

"Oneone was a racehorse, twotwo was one too. Twotwo won one race, and twotwo won one too!"

Depends where you set the bar for usable. I'm continually surprised at how many people I see using iphones with smashed screens on trains or the Tube.

Same here though personally I set the bar somewhat higher than that.

I think the the bar for usability is significantly affected by the money they may have to pay to have the phone replaced if their contract expired, they bought it upfront, etc.

I know if I had a £500 device that had a broken screen I would keep using it at least until I could afford to get the screen replaced.

I've dropped my phone numerous times with only minor dings resulting.

The pot of boiling water, on the other hand... (I was using the phone as a kitchen timer)

My wife's phone fell off a countertop, resulting in a completely smashed screen. (Basically a dense spiderweb of cracks covering the entire screen.) She wasn't using a case at the time, otherwise there's a good chance that wouldn't have happened.

However, it was fairly cheap to replace the screen (~$50) so maybe there's still no point in getting a case.

Another alternative is buying robust phones! My Nexus One has met the pavement with some assistance from gravity and my clumsy hands a couple of times and the casing has a couple of scratches to show for it. Screen as new.

Then there was the Blackberry Pearl I threw down a couple of times as a demonstration...

You're comparing apples and oranges. My iPhone has fallen onto pavement a few times as well with only minor dings. sillysaurus's wife's phone fell off a countertop, which probably indicates it was in a kitchen, which usually has tile floors. Tile floors are far more likely to result in a smashed device than any other type of floor, including concrete, so it's not surprising that there's a difference here.

Why is tile more likely to break a screen than concrete, out of curiosity? I'll admit I only ever dropped a watch onto tile and it did break the internals.

Ceramic is extremely hard (albeit brittle). Much more so than concrete (or wood flooring, or other common floor surfaces).

Fun fact ceramic used in spark plugs for ex. is so hard, a small piece of it thrown against a car window will destroy that window.

Mythbusters clip: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a5d_1257946254

> Tile floors are far more likely to result in a smashed device than any other type of floor, including concrete, so it's not surprising that there's a difference here.

My theory is that a counter-top or kitchen floor is more likely to have debris on it, generating a pressure point on the glass and causing it to crack.

I've dropped my 4S on flat surfaces (bricks, concrete) with no real issues. I dropped my old 4 two weeks in on the pavement, on a tiny rock, and the back shattered (Apple fixed it for free; otherwise it was AUD$39).

I'm pretty sure my kitchen floor has FAR less debris on it than the average outdoor concrete patch.

I was tying my shoelace and my Nexus One fell out of my shirt pocket and fell about 16 inches onto carpet, yes carpet. Ruined.

I found out later from HTC the screen was cracked neatly all down the right-hand side http://imgur.com/a/QmqHx But I couldn't see any crack when the bezel was on the only way to see it was when HTC disassembled it.

It was a month long battle with HTC before I agreed to $150 and told them I was never buying an HTC product again, ever. They didn't even repair it well, insulation sticking out of the bezel, screen calibration off.

Every phone I have owned since 1997 I have dropped it's impossible to say you won't ever drop your cellphone. Any phone company that sells a cellphone that breaks so easily when dropped, especially 16 inches onto carpet, should not be in the business of selling cellphones.

Seems almost certain that the crack was already there. Maybe it was a production defect from the factory, or maybe it was caused by a previous drop that did no obvious damage. Landing on the carpet didn't deliver much of a shock to the glass, but it was obviously enough.

It's similar to what might happen with a cracked car windshield. I don't think it's fair for you to blame HTC without knowing for sure if that crack was already there, and/or exactly what caused it.

Any phone company that sells a cellphone that breaks so easily when dropped, especially 16 inches onto carpet, should not be in the business of selling cellphones.

Obviously these phones don't normally break when dropped onto carpet from a moderate height, or their owners would all be screaming bloody murder. That crack was caused by either an unusual factory defect, shipping damage, or something else that happened before you dropped it onto the carpet.

My Nexus One met the pavement/concrete a few times (~3) without a case. The third caused a smashed screen. I don't doubt your story, but there are definitely angles that are better for the phone to land than others.

The Otterbox kept it safe after that.

The phone that got a rep for screens cracking? In personal experience the iPhone is robust and hardy, having met hundreds of drops fine.

I'd dropped my 3GS on every surface possible with not even so much as a dent. It wasn't until I was crossing the street and it fell and hit at the right angle that the screen finally shattered.

My Galaxy Nexus has been down the toilet and after a few weeks it worked fine, aside from the charging being a bit weird, but googling suggests that this might not be due to the toilet adventure.

My N1 was a week old when I dropped it and broke a chip out of the screen (before I cased it). Also, at two years old the USB port broke off.

My phone does feel amazingly this when I take the case off, though.

> However, it was fairly cheap to replace the screen (~$50)

+ transportation to the next Apple Store or reseller

+ time to deal with all of this

+ if you do not get an instant repair, getting a replacement device (and another round of transportation)

I've never had to pay to get my MacBook Pro repaired, but the (very rare) interruptions were enough to make me buy a Mac Mini as a backup computer. (Freelancing iOS developer reporting in from a hostel.)

>+ transportation to the next Apple Store or reseller + time to deal with all of this + if you do not get an instant repair, getting a replacement device (and another round of transportation)

Tons of stuff we do everyday, from groceries to checking our teeth, involve transportation and time to "deal with them".

It's not like this is an argument in favor of cases at all.

I'm not using a case because I care about $50, I'm using a case because the interruption to my work would be more expensive than that. How is this not an argument in favor of a case?

Your comment about your children's names reminded me of something I heard Bill Cosby say once. When he was a kid, he and his brother thought their names were "Dammit" and "Hellfire" until they were twelve years old. "Dammit, get in here! Hellfire, get out of that tree."

Actually it was Dammit and Jesus Christ.

Right you are:

  "Dammit, will you get in here!?"

  "Dad, I'm Jesus Christ!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYVqMj5i6k

> It's not about preserving it in mint condition, it's about preserving it in usable condition.

And for me that means not bothering with an expensive smartphone. I had a phone like that, sat on it and broke its screen. It was hundreds of dollars down the drain. I don't want to have to worry about a stupid phone or not putting it in the right pocket, or it getting wet, I got other things on my mind usually. So I just have a simple flip phone. If a mugger wants to steal it fine, they can have. If sit on it again and break it, "ok", I'll get another one.

Maybe everyone is just incredibly rich or like to spend a lot of time worrying about their expensive toy, I am neither.

You can buy a midrange smartphone for quite cheap. I got an Xperia Arc S last year for 180 pounds on PAYG, no contract. Since I'm going to void the warranty by rooting it and putting a clean ROM in it, I'd rather not have a top-line expensive phone with whatever crap it comes with (basically they all do, except maybe the Nexus flagship phones).

I use that and an older Blackberry Curve 3G which is a total workhorse and lasts forever on its battery. Surely the Android, not even being a last gen phone, trounces the Blackberry on every department esp. on the screen department. But it barely makes it to the end of the day without a recharge.

I'm not filthy rich but I can manage to sleep at night if something goes wrong and I lose a hundred or two. Never bought more than 1 cheapish phone a year, so it's not going to destroy my finances.

Neither of my phones are toys by the way, they allow me to get a lot more done and they also keep me entertained/informed when there's nothing else to do.

> they allow me to get a lot more done and they also keep me entertained/informed when there's nothing else to do.

That makes sense for you then.

I've heard people make snide remarks at me when I am out and need to find the nearest restaurant "why don't you get a smart phone, it would be so much easier". They are basically advocating paying hundreds more for a phone, and then, $40 for a data plan every month, so that 2 or 3 times a year I can find directions when I am lost.

I pay £15-£20 a month tops including calls. It's not that bad really, but I guess it depends on the prices and the service you can get where you are.

I had a nokia 3315 for most of last year for similar reasons. Nuff said.

How do you know that the case saved the day? I once had my case-less iPad fall from a ledge five feet above the surface it eventually landed on and it survived with nary a scratch. They seem fairly rugged on their own.

More than once my rubber case has stopped my phone from slipping off a table. I won't get into the details, but the toilet incident of 2011 was a close call and the case prevented certain disaster.

I remember when I first got smartphones around 2006 or 2007, I was breaking mine every 6 months or so. I currently have the original galaxy from samsung, and it is still going strong over 2 years later.

I think the cases were really important, but once the HTC Hero and that generation came out, then magically my phone lasted years!

Mine fell from a table about 80cm high, screen flat down on a hard floor. Got just a ding on the corner (and a heart attack). I've dropped an iPhone 4 probably a dozen times too, it's an year old, caseless and healthy (though you can see some light scratches if you look close enough).

I don't have small children, but I also apparently don't have any motor skills. I spent the money on an OtterBox for my phone and it's saved me from a cracked screen at least a half dozen times and from minor damage much more often than that. The down side is that my phone looks twice as large, but it's well worth it.

I have children 1 and 3 who use my Android, and sometimes drop it. No problems. Just in case, however, I do send them out of the kitchen when they're holding it, since it's our only non-carpeted area.

Likewise. Mine has taken more than a few spills and the case has saved it. I may just be a klutz.

Serious question: given that you purchased a case and then dropped the phone in the case, how can you possible claim to know whether the case saved it? All you know is that you dropped your phone with a case on and it didn't break.

I see this correlation = causation logic all the time about phone cases, and I find it quite bizarre. I've had an iPhone for 3 years now (3GS, then 4S). I've never used a case (or screen protector). I've dropped my phone before with no case and it survived. I've dropped it on pavement a couple times. I even lost it in the snow at a ski slope last winter. Someone found it and returned it. Works fine.

I don't doubt that cases reinforce phones, but I do think that people regard them as much more necessary than they actually are. Sure, if you have a kid in the house who loves to play with your phone, you should probably get a case. But as long you're careful with your phone for the most part (i.e. you're not consistently dropping it on pavement or something, you don't carry it in the same pocket as your keys, etc.), you probably don't need a case or screen protector. The phones aren't THAT fragile.

So you're asking for proof that a device that is made of solid glass and metal is more fragile when dropped than the same device surrounded by rubber, plastic, leather or another soft material?

I know it won't protect the device in every situation, but the $10 case protects the device in some situations (maybe only 10% or 20% of drops), so it has a very high ROI.

I once dropped my unprotected iPad from a height of about 2 feet, it landed on the granite floor on a corner edge, and the screen shattered. I had to buy a new iPad basically as Apple doesn't fix them. It now has a $20 case, and I would be willing to bet the value of the iPad that if I dropped it from the same height and it hit the same corner, the device would not have any significant damage although the case might.

> So you're asking for proof that a device that is made of solid glass and metal is more fragile when dropped than the same device surrounded by rubber, plastic, leather or another soft material?

That is distinctly not what I'm asking for. I specifically said "I don't doubt that cases reinforce phones" to address this. What I'm saying is that at any point no person could possible know whether their case has just saved their phone, or whether the phone would have been just as fine without the case.

> I know it won't protect the device in every situation, but the $10 case protects the device in some situations (maybe only 10% or 20% of drops), so it has a very high ROI.

My point is that I think most people don't actually get that ROI. I've had an iPhone for three years. I've dropped my phone. No case. The phone is fine. If you use a case and never drop your phone in such a way that you would have broken it (which is impossible to know, but I'm arguing is an overstated risk), then the price you've paid is a bulkier, heavier, uglier phone. The case comes with a cost other than just $10. If I could pay $10 to have my phone magically become invincible, I would do it. If I could pay $10 for a case, I would not.

I'm sorry to hear your iPad broke. I should say that I'm specifically talking about phones, mostly because the cost of having a case on my iPad all the time would be lower for me than with a phone, which you have to stick in a pocket all the time and thus suffers more from added bulkiness.

Another argument in that direction: I think that, all else being equal, bulkier phones get dropped more from pockets. For example, if my iPod Touch were half a centimeter taller, wider and deeper, it might not be possible to put it in a trouser pocket horizontally. Hence, it might not even be possible to put it deep inside the pocket when I am seated. Both make it easier to fall out of my pocket.

It kind of works like seatbelts. You can't prove that the fact someone fastened seatbelts had saved one from death in the accident that already happened. Some people survive, some people die. But the relative proportion of those two cases is the matter of scientific studies - that's the first method we have to determine that seatbelts help save lives. Another one is a mix of physics and common sense. It's better not to be ejected from your seat at high velocity and fly through glass. In the same way, it's better when the screen does not hit the ground (as rubber cases are bigger than the phone and thus protect from impact) or hits, but with much smaller velocity (as rubber absorbs the energy from collision with the ground).

So yes, we can't say much from all the anecdotes here. But there are strong reasons to suspect that phone cases are a net win in protecting screens from damage.

> But the relative proportion of those two cases is the matter of scientific studies

I guess my point is that I'd like to see a study like this, and I'd like people to stop saying "My case has saved my phone so many times," because nobody really knows that.

I'd like to know how much and in what situations a case actually is likely to save your phone from meaningful damage. Because, to use the analogy, my phone's been in a bunch of car accidents without its seatbelts -- non-trivial ones -- and is completely fine.

It would be one thing if a case didn't come with the added cost of a bulkier phone (as you mentioned, rubber cases make the phone fatter). But they do, so it's a cost-benefit analysis, and I think we're all mostly guessing. My assertion is just that I think most people are guessing too much on the side in favor of having a case, because iPhones are not as fragile as they seem as long as you treat them with a reasonable amount of care.

> iPhones are not as fragile as they seem as long as you treat them with a reasonable amount of care.

Accidents aren't about reasonable amounts of care. Cases are obviously there to protect phones when placed in non-ideal situations. Your crusade against cases is fairly silly.

Well, I replaced the screen on my phone twice before I bought a case. I've dropped my phone many times, both before and after I got the case, but with the case it doesn't seem to get damaged. I got the slimmest case I could find, so it's definitely not bulletproof, but it makes a difference. I'd guess I've saved myself one screen replacement so far. It's maybe 1.5 mm thick, just a touch higher than the volume buttons on my 4S, so it doesn't add much bulk.

This anecdote not the double-blind replicated clinical trial that HN seems to insist on as a rational basis for believing anything, but it's enough to convince me to keep using the case. There's such a thing as being too skeptical.

I agree and can give the opposite example. I have a Sony Ericsson X10 since it was released (2 years ago? Longer?), never had a case, and have dropped it several times. You will find the marks from those falls only if you will look really hard.

It's not that bizarre. It's just an incidental psychological effect of the sunk cost fallacy. "I paid for this, so it must have been worth it, so if a scenario happens in which that-which-I-paid-for could have occurred, it must have occurred."

I use screen protectors because when I get tired of looking at my scratched screen, I can replace the protector and magically have a brand new screen.

0.25 wants to chew on my phone every time it rings if it's within reach.