Dropped my phone three inches and the screen shattered.

[yhelothar]

HTC One M7.

I was laying on a concrete floor doing an oil change. Wearing sweats with loose pockets, the phone slipped out onto the concrete. Screen shattered. It couldn't have fell more than 3 inches.

It's baffling how they can make these screens so incredibly fragile.

 

[nickbits]

Do you know the hardness rating for the glass on that phone?

 

[crashtestdummy]

Was the screen already scratched? Glass toughness can be incredibly sensitive to surface defects. If there's a deep scratch, sometimes a small hit to just the wrong spot can be catastrophic.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Physics are a bitch. Hardness is correlated with brittleness. The same technology that makes glass hard to scratch also makes them brittle. Combine that with a fairly high amount of weight in a small area, edge to edge (or close to) designs, and the fact that there are many corners on a phone that maximize force concentration make for a bad combination of factors.

 

[cronos]

That sucks. Sorry to hear that. A lot of this type of breaks are simply just bad luck. My guess is it dropped by its side instead of face down, which creates tension on the glass. I've heard crazy stories about the M7 dropped way higher than that and it survived with barely a scratch.

 

[yhelothar]

Was the screen already scratched? Glass toughness can be incredibly sensitive to surface defects. If there's a deep scratch, sometimes a small hit to just the wrong spot can be catastrophic.

Screen was close to flawless beforehand.
:\

I seriously thought the HTC One had a decent screen design to prevent shatters from drops. All four corners of the HTC One consist of a thick metal casing containing the speakers rather than the screen glass protruding out of the front face unlike many other phone designs including the iPhone and the SGS3. That was a big selling point to me, but it looks like it didn't help me in this case.

My first gen SGS had a thick metal frame around the edge with the glass recessed into it. It took a lot of hard drops and came out fine.

 

[luv2liv]

i have dropped my m7 much higher on concrete many times and came out with only minor scratches. no protective cases. sorry to hear your incident

 

[MongGrel]

My wife did that on about the 2d day she got her last one, still uses it a few cracks on it.

I was of the opinion don't even think of getting another immediately, she's still using it atm.

And that was right after she dumped the one before in water, so that reinforced it a bit when she got that one.

 

[mmntech]

Don't feel bad. Happened to my iPad a couple months ago. Was reading in bed, went to put it down, and it slid out of it's case. It's just held in with elastic straps.

Does it land screen first on the soft carpet? No. Pile of clothes next to the bed? No. Hard steel bed frame? Bingo. Shattered the screen.

I'll get an Otterbox next iPad I get. The case I have now is a nice synthetic leather one, but it was designed for the iPad 1, so the elastics don't hold my iPad 3 as tightly.

 

[MrSquished]

dropped my naked m8 farther than that on multiple occasions. no screen issues. a lot of it is really just plain bad luck it lands at just the right angle to cause screen shatter.

 

[yhelothar]

dropped my naked m8 farther than that on multiple occasions. no screen issues. a lot of it is really just plain bad luck it lands at just the right angle to cause screen shatter.

Yeah I'm sure it's bad luck from it landing at its weakest point.

 

[gmaster456]

 

[kyrax12]

Did you have a screen protector on?


That is why I am always going to equip my phone with a screen protector from now on.

 

[Roland00Address]

Who is your phone provider?

Best Buy is clearing out their AT&T HTC One m7 edition (the original model, not the faster newer one) for $199 with no contract. 32gb storage comes in three different colors.

http://slickdeals.net/f/7579186-32g...one-in-black-silver-or-blue-200-free-shipping

There has also been some other recent good deals for cell phones. Just check out SD.

 

[gmaster456]

Great deal ^^

 

[yhelothar]

Who is your phone provider?

Best Buy is clearing out their AT&T HTC One m7 edition (the original model, not the faster newer one) for $199 with no contract. 32gb storage comes in three different colors.

http://slickdeals.net/f/7579186-32g...one-in-black-silver-or-blue-200-free-shipping

There has also been some other recent good deals for cell phones. Just check out SD.

I just bought a replacement screen for $15 on eBay. It looks like a pain in the ass to take apart but it beats paying $200.

 

[yhelothar]

Did you have a screen protector on?


That is why I am always going to equip my phone with a screen protector from now on.

No screen protector. But I don't think it would've helped. I would've needed a case. I specifically chose a phone that had solid metal on the corners so it'd be less likely to break the glass so I wouldn't have to use an ugly, bulky case. It seems silly to buy such a sleek phone with a nice aluminum body only to put an ugly case on it. Looks like I'll still be needing it anyways.

 

[soccerballtux]

Do you know the hardness rating for the glass on that phone?

diamonds are very hard but will easily shatter.

just like tungsten carbide.

just like gorilla.

gorilla 4 addresses this

what you want is durability. hardness typically implies shatterability.

 

[Ruiner1]

I've dropped my note3 a few times and had no problems but a couple of weeks ago it fell back-down onto the kitchen floor from my pocket - tiled floor onto concrete base. The glass was fine, but the LCD cracked and within a few hours it was completely black.

£125 for a new screen/digitiser/outer glass assembly later and it is like new again. Very stressful taking the entire phone apart to fit it though. On the upside, the 10 or so big scratches and chips that were on the outer band also got replaced since the assembly came on a new frame. It even had heat pads preinstalled.

 

[poofyhairguy]

No screen protector. But I don't think it would've helped.

A glass one would. That is why every mobile device I care about has a glass screen protector.

It takes the impact, it shatters, and your main screen stays fine. All the energy is displaced in the initial shatter.

I go through a lot of them because I am klutz, but that is preferable to replacing phone screens.

 

[sweenish]

Plastic phones are better in the case of drops, as the plastic is relatively weak and will take the blow for you more often than not.

Aluminum will gladly pass it along to the glass.

I'm surprised none of the removable battery evangelists chimed in. Those things are designed to pop out as a method of stress relief. That's why they always fly out the way they do. A lot of the drop energy got transferred to it.

 

[rh71]

A glass one would. That is why every mobile device I care about has a glass screen protector.

It takes the impact, it shatters, and your main screen stays fine. All the energy is displaced in the initial shatter.

I go through a lot of them because I am klutz, but that is preferable to replacing phone screens.

Are plastic screen protectors really useless in that regard? I've seen tint film on cars protect direct window smashes for over 20 seconds of repeated hammering.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Are plastic screen protectors really useless in that regard?

No, they certainly absorb some of the impact. But they feel terrible for day-to-day use compared to glass.

 

[Insomniator]

Have had two Tech Armor glass protectors shatter on my Galaxy S5, but the actual screen was fine. They sent me free replacements both times.

HIGHLY recommend a glass screen protector on your phone. The $15 ebay replacement might work... but it won't be as good as the original.

 

[yhelothar]

Thanks for the advice on the glass screen protector. I'm going to be checking those out.

The $15 one claims it's the OEM part. It actually has the HTC logo on it unlike the obvious 3rd party ones that cost $8-10.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HTC-One-M7-...e_Replacement_Parts_Tools&hash=item4ac865818b

Plastic phones are better in the case of drops, as the plastic is relatively weak and will take the blow for you more often than not.

Aluminum will gladly pass it along to the glass.

I'm surprised none of the removable battery evangelists chimed in. Those things are designed to pop out as a method of stress relief. That's why they always fly out the way they do. A lot of the drop energy got transferred to it.

Those are good points.