I work for a handset insurance company. Depending upon your carrier, insurance is $5-7 per month, with a deductable of $50-100, depending on the model. The upside: you get a working phone flashed for your carrier and with your number programmed within two business days as well if you preesent a claim.
A new iPhone5 would cost roughly $850 to replace out of pocket. Personally, seeing what I do coming into our Returns department / repair center, were I the OP, I’d get a case. I have one for my smart phone.
I am a klutz, so I can regularly drop my phone. Fortunately, since I always have a rubber case of some sort, it always survives with no problems. Of course, the only time I used a slim line case, I ended up with a couple of chips around the edges and a scratch off of the viewing screen area.
Therefore, I think it’s a really wise investment. Plus, if you’re cheap like I am, your case shouldn’t set you back more than about $15. I typically get them at a kiosk at the mall where you can haggle over price. If I’m not in a hurry, I can usually find something neat off of eBay for less than a buck and then just wait for it to arrive from China (free shipping). Takes about three weeks.
Hence my scare quotes on “small” and my many caveats in my first post ensuring linear utility functions in this dollar range.
If you find that a case adds to the quality of the device, the conclusion is to get a case, and you’ve come to that conclusion. I don’t have a Samsung, so I can comment on the phone or the cases. For the iPhone, I’ve never found a case that improves the ergonomics of the device, so the calculation becomes one of expected replacement cost. “Expected” replacement cost being key. If you are super sure you will break your phone, then a case or even actual insurance is a good bet. In my situation I think the chances are low, so I’m only risking a few tens of dollars on average for the enjoyment of a naked phone.
Mentally, I pool this sort of low-probability / reasonable-expense event ($700-$1000) in the same bucket as a broken crank pulley on my car ($900) or a downed tree branch on my house ($1200) or a busted water heater ($700). Life is full of these, so I expect to deal with one or another of them every few months. Because there are many such events possible, each unlikely on its own, it is “fair” to evaluate them in terms of averages. Thus: I’m “paying” $30 to have a naked phone, and that’s worth it to me because I don’t like the iPhone cases in comparison with the naked iPhone.
This just means that the insurance company will make money. I wasn’t talking about actual insurance for $30. I was talking about the expected replacement cost, folding in the probability of needing to replace it, and casting that in insurance language since they are economically equivalent.
A case that protects the edges/corners of the phone is sensible. I’m less sure about the benefit of screen-protector films. I have one on my phone and it gets really scratched up, being made of, well, soft plastic film. When I peeled it off to replace it, I realised just how good the screen looked under all that plastic! I still put another one on, though, as I often keep my phone bumping around in a bag with lots of scratchy things that could probably mess up the glass.
@Pasta: Okay. I completely understand the concept of self-insuring and expecting one unusual expense or another at intervals. (And the more stuff you’re responsible for, the more of them.) I do that for many things and yep, something hits about once a month.
But saving $15-30 by not buying a protective case for an item that is at continual risk of damage while you use it and will cost you $500-800 (and a day’s hassle) to replace doesn’t add up.
That case will probably eliminate 90% of the damage potential from moderate-height corner-drops, leaving only extreme and hopefully rare events as damage opportunities. You’re betting far too much on the relative longshot that you aren’t going to drop the phone from 3-5 feet onto a hard surface and have it strike on a vulnerable corner, even one time, in over 700 days of use. Your idea is right, but I think your odds and cost/value ratio is way, way off.
Just to be clear, as I stated in the OP, I have always used a cover. I’m just asking whether the Iphone is now sturdy enough not to need one. Frankly, I think Pasta’s rationale is crazy – what I want to know is whether it will not break when I drop it repeatedly on all kinds of surfaces. The replies so far in this thread persuade me that it will break, so I will keep the case.
I just took my iphone 5 out of the case to see just how slippery it is without it, and it’s damn slippery. The brushed aluminum is slick and slides down your hand very easily. A case is HIGHLY suggested. If not a full case (I think the Otterbox is overkill) you should at least get a skin for it to decrease the coefficient of friction, and so you can just let it clatter onto your desk/bed/dashboard without a second thought.
Edit: I think that the iphone 5 is stronger especially with regard to corner impacts but I don’t think it’s gotten to the point where it’s made a case redundant. It’ll just lessen what would otherwise happen.
My usual environment involves a lot of marble/terrazzo/concrete floors, and every thing I ever have in my pockets will fall upon them sooner or later, so I prefer some sort of protective covering on my iPhone. Not necessarily the super-indestructible cases, my 3GS went around for years with a simple silicone-rubber skin and it bounced off the marble a handful of times.
I dunno. I’ve had two iPhones over a 6 year period and have had nary a scratch on either one, even with multiple very scary drops over that time period. So I estimate my own probability of damage to be low (so far it’s so low as to be unmeasurable), and the OP can take that datum for what it’s worth. However, from my anecdotal data of others with iPhones, the damage rate seems similarly low in the population at large.
For the case more generally, it’s well worth tens of dollars to me not to have a case. I much prefer the no-case version of the iPhone, and that’s something that will differ from person to person. My main message is that this is how one can quantify the “price” of not having a case, which might make it easier to make the choice.
To each his own. My rationale is solid economics, but you need to input your own estimate for “probability of break”, which will differ from person to person.
I drop my iPhone painfully hard on solid surfaces roughly once every couple of months, so probably >30 times over six years. It has never broken. Yes, they break. I’m just offering the viewpoint that it’s rare enough that you should only bother with a case if you actually like having the case or if you think you’ll drop your phone so much more often that my non-broken phone after some 30+ drops is not a relevant sample because you’ll drop yours way more than that.
I really don’t think cheap cases are doing much to protect the phone. They are just thin pieces of flimsy plastic. Phone cases are fashion items not protection from being dropped. There may be a little to the idea that there is some protection to having a little lip and keeping the screen from contacting the table but that only protects against very small grit on a table.
Unless you are getting a substantial case similar to the otter cases I don’t think you are getting much protection.
Have you *looked *at any of the cases you’re dismissing?
As much as I’m for cases, I think the Otterbox series turns a phone into a ponderous brick, and should be used only by people who are in the field or otherwise subject a phone to really rugged conditions.
The silicone+shell cases offer superb corner protection, excellent back protection, and tend to have lips deep enough to keep the screen a good 3-4mm from any surface you set them on. Plus, both my S3 and my Note II are incredibly slippery uncased; the aCase shell I use makes them just grippy enough not to drop, just slippery enough not to hang up in my pockets, and the button protrusions make the controls easier to access. Both fit perfectly and can be taken off for cleaning in seconds. I’ve used a wide variety of phones and cases and so forth and I’ve never had anything that added so much while taking so little space.
For those who need or want it, Otterboxes do indeed give “much protection.” My neighbor’s 12-year-old son left his iPhone sitting on the flat topped rear bumper of his uncle’s truck during a visit by the uncle one day. Uncle and wife drive off, get on a nearby interstate highway, and head home to their small rural town. Kid’s friend with Find My iPhone locates it going down I-40 about fifteen miles away. So they call the uncle on his cell phone and he pulls over and looks for it but can’t find it, it evidently fell off between the time the son’s friend spotted it and the uncle answered his phone. So neighbor and his son head out to retrieve it, but it’s getting dark and they can’t find it (they didn’t know you could get Find My iPhone to make the phone make a loud tone to help locate it). So they give up till the next day. During the night it rains, not a gulley-washer but a fair amount of rain nevertheless. They dispiritedly head out the next morning to look for the phone where FMiP showed it be and found it off the side of the road next to a field. The Otterbox had protected the phone completely, from falling off a truck at highway speeds to the overnight rain, and it still worked just fine. The kid still has the phone, and the phone still has its Otterbox.
If you’re going to throw your phone in a purse or pocket where it contacts other objects I’d get a screen protector, or if you’re just generally rough on things. Otherwise I think a screen protector just adds a little distortion to the screen and sometimes makes it more difficult to wipe off. Plus there is the chance of air bubbles when you put it on.