Why have a case/screen protector?

[gruff]

Mobile phones are essentially disposable devices; witness the fact that sales of handsets in the "developed world" remain so high despite the (over)saturation level of ownership. Even an iPhone is not for life but (in the UK, at least) 18 months (or even sorter if Apple launch a new product).

That being the case, why do so many people decide that it is necessary to protect their phone from day to day knocks and scratches. I think my car is more likely to deteriorate (and last longer), but I have never seen ultra thin car covering films being bough in larger numbers by motorists.

Screen protectors the same - unless you have a diamond studded key chain, I don't think you are likely to see much significant damage.

If you use stuff it wears out, and its never going to go into a museum, so get over it.

Just curious....

 

[Ferris23]

Valid point. I like my gear to stay nice and clean, free of scratches. I also keep it this way to increase the resale value of my stuff when I upgrade. People like buying like new rather than buying like ****.

 

[eedna]

if youve got 300 disposable dollars ill take it off your hands

otherwise i enjoy keeping nice things looking nice, as well as protecting an investment. while an iphone may be 'disposable', the 960 or so extra dollars im going to be paying over the next 2 years for data isnt, and if i dispose my iphone, i need to come up with more disposable money for a new iphone or just enjoy a wap browser on a razr

 

[scott99]

Mobile phones are essentially disposable devices; witness the fact that sales of handsets in the "developed world" remain so high despite the (over)saturation level of ownership. Even an iPhone is not for life but (in the UK, at least) 18 months (or even sorter if Apple launch a new product).

That being the case, why do so many people decide that it is necessary to protect their phone from day to day knocks and scratches. I think my car is more likely to deteriorate (and last longer), but I have never seen ultra thin car covering films being bough in larger numbers by motorists.

Screen protectors the same - unless you have a diamond studded key chain, I don't think you are likely to see much significant damage.

If you use stuff it wears out, and its never going to go into a museum, so get over it.

Just curious....

You make some valid points, but some people don't look at cell phones as disposable. The fact that phone case sales is a billion dollar industry is proof that most people don't agree with you. Ever since I've owned a cell phone (1998), I've had my phone in a case. In fact, prior to getting my iPhones (version 1 and the 3G), I had cases for them. Some people just prefer to look at their electronics as valuable things, and try to protect them to the best of their abilities, I know I do.

 

[Rayfire]

This is my first (so far best) smart phone that I've owned that's why I want to really take good care of it. I did the same thing on my car, I clean it either once a week or once every two weeks. I'm OCD with all the stuff I buy

 

[gospel9]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Because you are much more likely to drop your phone than damaging your car. The iPhone unfortunately is a very fragile device. The glass cracks very easily.

 

[daveishere]

good point, i dont know why but id hate to see my iphone scratched. i just like to look after my stuff.

I disagree with the screen protector thing. I think everyone should have at least a form of screen protection on their screens. They're cheap, easy to use and invisible. Why not?