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Is the Iphone 4 Fragile?

archrider

archrider

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 10, 2008
815
98
I have read in many places in this forum and others that the IP4 is "so fragile". The word glass scares everyone.

People use it as a reason to go to other phones. So was Apple lying with this statement:

"Engineered Glass"

"All the breakthrough technology in iPhone 4 is situated between two glossy panels of aluminosilicate glass — the same type of glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable"

If this is true the Iphone 4 is the strongest most durable phone ever made, because without exception all other phones have plastic parts.

So I hope I never read the Fragile Iphone 4 misconception again.

Now I know I will be swamped with stories of broken IP4s. But the number probably doesn't come up to broken phones of any other brand.
 
I dropped my iPhone 4 a lot of times on my bed and its still in perfect shape
 
I've thrown mine against a brick wall with no case on and it doesn't have one scratch on it...
 
It's pretty durable, some people on here seem to think they should be able to abuse it and get upset when they damage it.
 
I took my case off to clean my iPhone and whata you know it slipped out of my hands and dropped 6 ft. Landed on the top corner and smacked the ground, no damage.
 
Good question...

I was wondering about this too! After paying $300 for any electronic device I like to drop it at least once a day, just to see what happens. :rolleyes:
 
gabe281 said:
I was wondering about this too! After paying $300 for any electronic device I like to drop it at least once a day, just to see what happens. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I can see this thread is going to be loaded with sarcasm.

And good humor.
 
In all honesty its pretty fragile when compared to other phones. Yes you can drop and have no damage, but the % chance of having an unusable/cracked phone is much higher then in plastic phones like my old samsung. Just one of the few sacrifices you have to make for having an awesome phone though.
 
I've had mine since it came out - it braved Universal and Islands of Adventure on it's first weekend and have not had a problem with it sense. No case other than the hip case I used for my 3G. It's gone in my pocket and gets used tons in the car with Pandora and not a signal scratch on it yet. It has slipped off of a dresser and nightstand or two onto carpeted floor with no problems but I figure as long as you take reasonable care of it it's just as durable as anything else.
 
My back glass shattered when I dropped my phone from less than two feet. So yeah it's pretty fragile imo.

I think it depends how it lands tho and on what surface cuz plenty of other people have dropped theirs and nothing has happened.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

Sufficient force, concentrated in one small area, is a glass panel's worst nightmare. This is why vehicle escape tools work so effectively against glass windows.

The flaw in the iPhone-4 isn't in the glass itself, but that the glass panels extend almost to the phone's outer edges, and it doesn't have a buffering material (like plastic) to protect those edges and spread out the forces.

So if you drop your phone on a hard surface (concrete, tile, etc.) and it doesn't land perfectly flat or vertical, the glass panel's edge will be taking all that force and may certainly shatter the panel itself.

Get a case, a plastic phone, or take your chances.

I personally think the iPhone 4 is the best phone on the market, so I opted for a case.
 
In my experience, it is less fragile that the previous iPhone design. The back doesn't scratch or crack. I've dropped mine a few times and it's fine. I think some people are overly hard on their phones, but expect them to take a beating and that's where you hear these stories from.
 
i`ll be completely honest.

its easy to mark and scratch, but hard to break.


i chucked mine to my brother in law at a gathering and it got dropped, dented the corner a lil and landed face down after hitting the corner. didnt shatter.

so yea not bad.
 
only dropped mine naked once. if it wasnt for labor day i would have had it by then :mad: but anyways, it hit cement pretty hard and didnt shatter :/
 
The glass is "hard" in that it won't scratch easily and can't be easily deformed with pressure. It is, however, somewhat brittle. It is kind of like a diamond, which is the harder than steal but which can be chipped by a chisel or smashed to dust by a hammer fairly easily. So yes, the iPhone is in fact somewhat fragile. You should carry it in at least a Bumper or expect to have to replace the glass of the front or back once or twice a year. As long as the phone itself doesn't break, replacing the glass should only run you about $100, so that isn't too bad.
Note that if it falls and the metal outer rim hits first that will absorb most of the impact. But if it falls and the glass strikes something hard first (and worse, something a little pointy) it will chip or shatter.
 
I've dropped it on a hardwood floor and on concrete and both times it was unscathed. I'd say it's not that fragile.
 
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