A client who dropped his phone in the snow and found it two months later in a puddle of snowmelt. A client whose phone was run over by a truck and brought it in with tire chain marks crushed onto the screen.
Their experience shows that even if you’ve vowed to be careful, the world is filled with potential tech treachery, so it’s best to act preemptively and wrap your phone in a protective case. We talked to these two experts who have witnessed the most harrowing smartphone horror stories, and they offered some advice you can use to avoid witnessing your own.
Protect Your Phone From Impact
The most common problem that Agrawal says brings customers to repair shops is shattered glass screens. Screens are particularly vulnerable to shattering if the point of impact is at a corner of the phone, where force exerted on the glass is more concentrated.
For a baseline level of protection, choose a case made of a shock-absorbent material (like silicone or rubber) that covers your phone’s vulnerable corners. Shoman advises smartphone owners against plastic cases, which do not effectively absorb shock and are likelier to translate the impact onto the device itself.
TinKon Advice
The experiences that our smartphones allow us to have (receiving the latest information, taking pictures we cherish, staying in touch with loved ones) are well worth protecting. But as phones become increasingly portable, we expose them to greater risks, from the elements to good ol’ human error. Agrawal and Shoman emphasize that while cases are the best way to preemptively protect your phone, no case is 100 percent foolproof.
