14 DAY TRIAL // You watch TV all snuggled up under the super-soft blanket with your phone just next to you on the couch. It’s a commercial break, and you snatch at the glass of wine on the coffee table when, suddenly, you hear a noise. It sounds like something just hit the ground. You don’t look around, but in that half of second, you know it can’t be good.
It can be just two things. It’s either the remote or the phone. You start praying it’s the remote. It’s not. It’s the phone, and it’s laying on the ground face down after what seemed to be like a pretty strong hit. You look at it, and you’re worried. They’re the longest 5 seconds of your life.
What happens when I pick it up? Will the display be completely shattered? Will it be full of scratches? It’s a terrible feeling, and it simply doesn’t go away as long as you keep looking at the phone.
Finally, you lean towards the phone and pick it up. You no longer care about the movie, and you turn on all the lights in the room to start inspecting the screen, the corners, and the back of the phone. No scratches, no damage. Phew! It was so close this time.
Sooner or later, this happens to all of us in one way or another. Whether it’s at home, at the office, or on the street, phones hit the ground every once in a while, and there’s no way to stop it. It’s one of the worst feelings in our lives, and it’s all because smartphones have become super-expensive gadgets that we can’t really live without.
My precious...
The price factor is partially responsible for making those seconds when looking at the phone face down on the ground the longest in our lives. High-end phones are becoming so expensive these days that it’s nearly impossible to buy one without a contract, loan, or monthly payments. An iPhone 7, for example, costs nearly $1,000, and there’s a good chance that the next generation will be even more expensive than that.
Without a doubt, buying a high-end phone is a huge investment for many people, so smashing it to the ground is the worst thing that can happen, especially if you don’t have insurance.
And then, it’s because phones are so important for each of us. We want phones to always be in brand new condition, and obviously, we don’t want the screen to be scratched or shattered just because of 1 second of looking in the other direction.
The funny thing is that phone manufacturers have invested hard in new materials that are harder to break and scratch in the last decade, and this is why displays are covered in a new generation of Gorilla Glass with every upgrade, but for some reason, that feeling remains no matter what we do.
At some level, although they are made from new materials, phones become more prone to physical damage, especially when they hit the ground. The Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, for instance, with its glass body and metal frame, is a little piece of jewelry when holding it in hand, but all of this becomes useless when it hits the ground. And this is happening with all the other phones, even if they’re made by Apple, LG, HTC, Sony, or Huawei.
And obviously, the damage it suffers when hitting the ground depends on a number of factors, so the outcome can be anything from no scratches at all to becoming a brick.
Cases. Nope
One of the easiest ways to avoid your phone becoming just a bunch of broken glass is to carry it around in bubble wrap. Or to use a cover or a case. I personally have been against cases for many years simply because of all the efforts that phone manufacturers make in order to build more beautiful phones with more exquisite materials.
If you use a cover, even if it’s made from silicone and it’s fully transparent, all that magic goes away, and you really can’t enjoy how beautiful your phone actually is. And last but not least, a cover does not guarantee that your display won’t break into pieces when it hits the ground. There are other solutions for protecting the screen as well, but you could very well turn to the bubble wrap idea too.
Most people use covers and cases because they want to protect the phone and maintain its re-sale value over the years. Because, in the end, we come back to what we’ve said at the beginning of the article: high-end phones are super-expensive, and not everyone can afford to upgrade every time a new model launches. But if you can’t enjoy your phone fully, what good to spend so much on it?
As a conclusion, the best and easiest way to avoid that painful moment we were talking about in the intro is to always keep an eye on your phone. This isn’t hard, it’s more than that, but with a little luck, you can have a phone in nearly mint condition even without using a case. So in the end, it’s all up to each of us, and not to manufacturers or case makers.
Do you care so much about the phone to treat it like your little baby or you’re perfectly fine even if it goes out on a date with the ground every once in a while?
