It was an objectively worse device. I know a couple of people who bought them and had to upgrade much sooner than the people who got the 5S because updates made it unusably slow. It had nothing to do with the plastic.
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Other Is plastic more durable than aluminium/titanium/glass?
- Thread starter mectojic
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I remember Lumia 920 was made up of Polycarbonate alloy, which is actually plastic, it was a tank.
That cheap plastic took a bullet and saved the police officer's life.
Nokia Phone Stops Bullet, Saves a Man's Life
A Nokia Lumia is said to have stopped a bullet and saved a man in Afghanistan. The information was shared by Microsoft employee Peter Skillman, who is said to have worked on the model a few years ago.
www.itechpost.com
Plastic is never considered a premium material compared Titanium, Stainless Steel
Except for the 15 Pro Max, they have to work more on that structural change until next year's release.
I think this is a good point.
They were mostly used for texting and calling - maybe a game here and there. But by and large they were not the "do it all" devices we have now, so they weren't constantly in our hands.
That said, I do remember mine/friends'/family's plastic phones and there were often broken/cracked corners, scratched displays, scratched sides/back, disgustingly sticky rubberized parts, loose battery compartment covers (from opening and closing - the late 90s fidget toy) and worn-out hinges, worn/shiny/unreadable buttons, worn/polished-off color...
Depends on what property of durability. Plastic is less brittle than glass so it's less likely to crack from a drop test. But glass is harder than plastic, so it's more scratch resistant. Metal is malleable so it's less likely to crack from a drop, but it can bend and retain its new bent shape instead of flexing back to its original shape.
I’d buy an 5Cified iPhone 13 mini with no camera bump
The first iPod nano had a plastic screen, and people absolutely lost their goddamn minds over how easily the screen scratched.
The prototype iPhone had a plastic screen, and Steve Jobs threw the Jobs tantrum to end all Jobs tantrums over how easily the screen scratched… about three months before the iPhone was supposed to launch.
Plastic iBook and MacBook casings discoloured and cracked if you looked at them funny.
Durability is a relative term.
The prototype iPhone had a plastic screen, and Steve Jobs threw the Jobs tantrum to end all Jobs tantrums over how easily the screen scratched… about three months before the iPhone was supposed to launch.
Plastic iBook and MacBook casings discoloured and cracked if you looked at them funny.
Durability is a relative term.
I dropped my Nokia phone once. Broke the floor. Phone was fine
The latest generation of airliners are made of plastic. A lot of premium things are these day. They are just marketed as composites or carbon fiber, but they're really just reinforced plastics.
I remember my Sony Ericsson P910i which had a capacitive screen so needed a screen saver but came with a stylus and was great to use and that was back in , great handwriting recognition and I used that for loads of things and nope it never broke when I dropped it and that was probably the first kind of smartphone I ever had back in 2004. All the older phones i had before were plastic and survived and nobody cared about 'premium' people just wanted durable and useful. Also you could still change your battery yourself, but my god was the camera awful.
I remember reading articles in 2007 about how the 3.5" iPhone was too large to be successful in the cell phone market. I still prefer the 3.5" phones over today's ones.
Aluminum bike frames are generally more durable than carbon fiber frames, and titanium bike frames are more durable than both.
I don't think that has anything to do with plastic. That's the processor, the same one found in the iPhone 5. It was just a year old, hardly bad by modern standards, now that the iPhone 15 literally uses a 1-year old chip.
A plastic back would be more robust than the glass one. A plastic screen however scratches more easily than a glass one. The Palm Pilots usually had a screen cover for that reason, and their stylus still tended to scratch the screen in the long run. The original iPhone was famously changed from a plastic screen to a glass screen at the last minute.
I personally liked the iPhone 5 best with its aluminum back, but wouldn’t mind a plastic back. AirPods and their charging cases are made of plastic. The MagSafe battery pack is made of plastic. The Apple Pencil is made of plastic. The iPad Magic Keyboard is made of plastic. It's fine.
I personally liked the iPhone 5 best with its aluminum back, but wouldn’t mind a plastic back. AirPods and their charging cases are made of plastic. The MagSafe battery pack is made of plastic. The Apple Pencil is made of plastic. The iPad Magic Keyboard is made of plastic. It's fine.
You would first need to establish what is meant by ‘durable’, as people often have different definitions. Then there is also how a product is engineered - the manner in which separate materials and components are combined.
With a lot of the products you mention and have been on this thread, the designs were very different to today.
One of the properties of plastic is its ability to return to its original shape once a load has been removed, which gives it a natural return of energy. So if you dropped an old Nokia on the floor, the many layers of plastic would absorb the kinetic energy, temporarily bend, then return to the original form.
Metals that have been used in recent times don’t have this advantage, particularly aluminium. What you gain with Apple’s unibody in terms of rigidity, volume and weight, you lose in permanent damage when an accident does occur.
But this is a topic that could go on forever because there will always be benefits and drawbacks. Just because plastic is hard doesn’t mean that damage will be insignificant - it can come down to the type of plastic.
Just compare polycarbonate to others. Apple use poly for many of their early-2000s products, and it was driven largely by aesthetics. In practice, it cracked easily and was weakened by constant exposure to heat.
What we’ll discover over time is that, while yes titanium does have some benefits in strength to weight ratio, the decision to move to it will have also been driven by marketing. And the general structure of the phone isn’t reliant on this external titanium frame because the internal frame is still made from aluminium.
There are few clear answers.
With a lot of the products you mention and have been on this thread, the designs were very different to today.
One of the properties of plastic is its ability to return to its original shape once a load has been removed, which gives it a natural return of energy. So if you dropped an old Nokia on the floor, the many layers of plastic would absorb the kinetic energy, temporarily bend, then return to the original form.
Metals that have been used in recent times don’t have this advantage, particularly aluminium. What you gain with Apple’s unibody in terms of rigidity, volume and weight, you lose in permanent damage when an accident does occur.
But this is a topic that could go on forever because there will always be benefits and drawbacks. Just because plastic is hard doesn’t mean that damage will be insignificant - it can come down to the type of plastic.
Just compare polycarbonate to others. Apple use poly for many of their early-2000s products, and it was driven largely by aesthetics. In practice, it cracked easily and was weakened by constant exposure to heat.
What we’ll discover over time is that, while yes titanium does have some benefits in strength to weight ratio, the decision to move to it will have also been driven by marketing. And the general structure of the phone isn’t reliant on this external titanium frame because the internal frame is still made from aluminium.
There are few clear answers.
The 3G/3GS did scratch and look terrible pretty much the moment you took it out of the box, so no, I don't think that polycarbonate is a good choice for modern phones.
In many ways, yes. But it's complicated. One thing is certain though: steel is real.
Durable isn't a physical quality that can be measured. There are physical qualities that can be measured, but they often involve a tradeoff.
There's hardness, which is usually a tradeoff between soft-hard and able to deform - brittle: the harder it is, the more prone to break, if it's less hard it can be deformed. If your plastic cup falls, it may have a dent; but you can scratch it by looking at it sharply. If your glass cup falls, it will break, but you need something that's harder to be able to scratch it. Is plastic "more durable" than glass: well, it'll get dented up and it'll scratch WAY sooner than your glass; but it won't break as easily.
Metal is, once again, harder than plastic; but apple tends to use mostly aluminium, which is a pretty soft metal. the top layer is aluminium oxide, which is harder still. Advantage: your phone won't scratch, but if it falls the metal won't break. Metal here is "more durable" any which way you look at it.
Add to that that most plastic is use-once-then-landfill, while glass and metal can be easily recycled, I'd say it's a win overall.
I think some people are kinda of missing the point and getting too complicated.
1) Old 'brick' plastic phones are well-known for being indestructible.
2) Admittedly, plastic touch screens scratch too easily.
3) The logical conclusion for a durable phone would be to use hard plastics like the old brick phones, with a glass front.
4) Would Apple do this? Of course not. But it's not "progress" to have phones that cost 10x more than they used to, and are 10x more likely to break.
1) Old 'brick' plastic phones are well-known for being indestructible.
2) Admittedly, plastic touch screens scratch too easily.
3) The logical conclusion for a durable phone would be to use hard plastics like the old brick phones, with a glass front.
4) Would Apple do this? Of course not. But it's not "progress" to have phones that cost 10x more than they used to, and are 10x more likely to break.
My first cell phone was a Nokia brick, on the old Sprint Spectrum system. I got NO service anywhere except briefly when driving past their tower. I used to joke that if I got carjacked I couldn’t call for help, but at least I could club the guy over the head with the phone.
