Glass not the best for phones = cracked my N4

Z

Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Messages
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The Nexus 4 was my first partially glass constructed phone, and my last. I have had many Samsung and HTC Android phones drop, bounce, skip across the floor, and they worked like a champ still. Typically battery cover pops off, and battery falls out, but put back together, and all good again :)

Not so with my Nexus 4, and I LOVED this phone, but was in the washroom, set it down for one second, to wash my hands, and I slipped pushing the phone off the top of toilet, and it hit the tile floor, OH SH!T NO, picked up, and yep, huge spider web cracked screen :( I see phone calls and texts coming in, but can press anything, no reaction.

Luckily I still had my old white color, international HTC One X, running CM10, which I like too, but it's no Nexus 4.

But damn, that glass phone is super fragile. Not the best materials to make a phone of. Out of like 8 Android phones, over last 4 years, this was my first one that actually broken and cracked, being unusable.
 
Same here, same way. I'm looking forward to the potential for sapphire glass in the future. My watch has it, and has taken a beating for the past 10 years. Still flawless.
 
Personally I think glass is simply a ploy by phone companies to get users to buy more phones.

I mean anyone who has actually ever worn real "glass" glasses or had a glass watch, knows what a pain in the ass they are if they should ever happen to fall from your face or nightstand.

Plexiglass was a godsend for tough resilient optical glasses, and its good enough for people to wear everyday for vision correction. But Oh!! we want glass in our phones....

What its about is the younger generation simply doesn't know better and fell to marketing hype. Oh... carrying around a piece of glass... so revolutionary.... not.
 
I was going to hold out for the Nexus-Five or Motorola X both due Nov/Dec. But that's too far away.

Looks like the durable Galaxy S4 it might be. But then again, this international One X isn't so bad, I am running an older CM10 ROM from November, is pretty slick and quick.
 
LG will fix it or replace it for $140. It's considered an out-of-warranty repair, so you call them, set up an RMA, ship it to them at the LG repair facility in Texas, they inspect it and email you a price quote. Mine (and pretty much everyone else that I have seen was $140 if it's the front glass/digitizer). You can then agree to the fix, give them your credit card and it should be back in your hands within 5-7 days. Or tell them you don't want it fixed and they ship it back to you.

You pay to ship it to them, they ship it back to you.

Then buy a case to use when you get it back.
 
entropism said:
Same here, same way. I'm looking forward to the potential for sapphire glass in the future. My watch has it, and has taken a beating for the past 10 years. Still flawless.
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Sapphire is really hard and scratch resistant but because it's a crystal with cleavage planes as well as being pretty brittle it'd probably be no more shatter resistant.

Even diamond has the same issue (it's possible to smash diamonds with a hammer even though they'd be able to cut said hammer pretty easily).
 
Wow Zorachus. Sorry to hear about the bad luck. Were you rocking any type of case on this? Not that it matters now I guess. Sucks though because I know you've only had that phone for what? A couple months tops? Yeah a glass phone would scare me. Have you seen those rumors about the Note 3? Apparently they're speculating it may introduce a new unbreakable type of display made of plastic. Sounds pretty cool.
 
I think the glass they use in phones is pretty good, its very strong and rarely breaks. But it does happen, I suppose it probably comes down to clarity and certain types of durability. Its nice to have a good non plastic hard surface you can easily clean and wife off without scratching. I think the much bigger crime is not the fact the phone has glass in it but the fact that they seal them up such that its no easy to replace or separate from the display. If the glass was easier and cheaper to replace no one would care and I think they could easily do that.
 
Pylon said:
Did you crack the front or the back?
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Front, landed in just the right place, to spiderweb crack it. Phone was still receiving calls and texts, put no touchscreen response, I could not press anything to work, but could see it.
 
Johnny78 said:
... Were you rocking any type of case on this? ...
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+1 on this. I use a TPU case (Blason), and while it covers the back, it has enough of a "lip" around the front, to help protect the glass. While it may not totally prevent the glass from cracking, its certainly better than nothing.
 
Zorachus said:
was in the washroom, set it down for one second, to wash my hands, and I slipped pushing the phone off the top of toilet
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Yuck. Were you... no, don't answer that. Just... yuck. Cellphone + bathroom = yuck.
 
evilsofa said:
Yuck. Were you... no, don't answer that. Just... yuck. Cellphone + bathroom = yuck.
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Are you serious ? LOL :)

I always read news sites and emails when doing my duty :). At home only, not some port-a-john at a carnival. Most my buddies say they to do.
 
You need a case for this phone.
I dropped my Nexus 4 two feet onto a concrete floor and it bounced on all four of its corners before landing on the screen.
The screen is intact but all four corners are scuffed and I am pissed as hell!
 
walwalka said:
Lulz... It's time for a new phone.

Sorry about the bad luck man..

The Rhino Shield looks impressive, I will be getting one for my note II when they are out.
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Um.. what are you talking about? :confused:
 
Conman said:
Three words. Rhino Shield Kickstarter. In the video they hit the screen with a hammer,ice pick,and two knives with zero damage.Soon as it's out my Nexus 4 will be wearing it.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1081571316/rhino-shield-the-impact-resistant-screen-protector
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Couldn't help but notice on one of the drop tests, that the Rhino Shield produced a horrible rainbow effect on the iPhone screen. The product looks durable but a really distracting rainbow is a deal breaker.
 
Skillz said:
Um.. what are you talking about? :confused:
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He's saying don't expect anymore third party accessories (or support in general) for the Droid X2 and I'm sorry to say I agree with him. The Droid X2 was pretty much obsolete when it launched; no 4G, only 512 MBs of RAM and it was almost immediately replaced with the Bionic (which was almost immediately replaced with the Razr).

OP, this is why I always use a case. I very rarely drop my phone, but a $10 TPU case is a worthy investment for any newer smart phone.
 
T4rd said:
He's saying don't expect anymore third party accessories (or support in general) for the Droid X2 and I'm sorry to say I agree with him. The Droid X2 was pretty much obsolete when it launched; no 4G, only 512 MBs of RAM and it was almost immediately replaced with the Bionic (which was almost immediately replaced with the Razr).

OP, this is why I always use a case. I very rarely drop my phone, but a $10 TPU case is a worthy investment for any newer smart phone.
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Judging by the design of that, I'm pretty sure a generic Rhino Shield would fit the bill perfectly, even if I have to cut/trim the edges. :rolleyes:
 
I have the OEM Google bumper on my Nexus 4 and it seemed to work well when I dropped my phone onto tile from a height of about 5 feet. Slight nick in the bumper but otherwise no sign of damage.
 
Skillz said:
Judging by the design of that, I'm pretty sure a generic Rhino Shield would fit the bill perfectly, even if I have to cut/trim the edges. :rolleyes:
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Probably much easier said than done. Don't think you'll be able to trim something harder than Gorilla Glass without shattering it. Plus I don't see an option for a "Generic" protector, only for popular devices like the S3, Nexus phones/tabs, Note 2, One X, One, Z10, iPhones and iPads, etc. All of those are much larger than the DX2.
 
you should check out the specs of a phone before you purchase one. Only phones with gorilla glass and removeable battery will I consider to purchase.
 
entropism said:
Same here, same way. I'm looking forward to the potential for sapphire glass in the future. My watch has it, and has taken a beating for the past 10 years. Still flawless.
Click to expand...

Sapphire is hard but it still scratches and can shatter, I have a $500 repair job from Tag to fix one. Not sure how cheap it would be to get a phone sized piece either but I guess with mass production it can bring the costs down.
 
It really is a form vs. function type trade off. The S4 is a great example of this. You get a lot of function ranging from durability to being able to have removable parts while keeping the phone thin and light. But then you have the complaints of how it looks and feels in hand compared to other materials.

For myself I can't really say what I'd actually prefer as such I just take whatever comes.

ND40oz said:
Sapphire is hard but it still scratches and can shatter, I have a $500 repair job from Tag to fix one. Not sure how cheap it would be to get a phone sized piece either but I guess with mass production it can bring the costs down.
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The estimate I have read before said Sapphire would cost ~$30 a phone versus ~$2 for Gorilla Glass 2.
 
staticlag said:
Personally I think glass is simply a ploy by phone companies to get users to buy more phones.

I mean anyone who has actually ever worn real "glass" glasses or had a glass watch, knows what a pain in the ass they are if they should ever happen to fall from your face or nightstand.

Plexiglass was a godsend for tough resilient optical glasses, and its good enough for people to wear everyday for vision correction. But Oh!! we want glass in our phones....

What its about is the younger generation simply doesn't know better and fell to marketing hype. Oh... carrying around a piece of glass... so revolutionary.... not.
Click to expand...

It's not really marketing hype, glass is chosen for it's scratch resistance. Acrylic "glass" (like plexiglass) is a plastic, and while much more shatter resistant, it doesn't have near the scratch resistance as glass. It works for eyeglasses because compared to a smartphone it gets handled much less. Glass also has better clarity than the shatter resistant plastics, although acrylic has pretty good clarity.
 
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