Repair Shops Are Stoked That the Samsung Galaxy S8 Is the Most Fragile Phone Ever Made (vice.com)

Smartphone repair companies are expecting to fix a lot of those beautiful, cracked Infinity Screens, the headline feature of the Samsung Galaxy S8. From a report on Motherboard: The Samsung Galaxy S8 is expensive, popular, and fragile. Its parts can also be sourced relatively inexpensively, which means that third party repair companies are salivating over the prospect of you fumbling the phone and bringing it to them for a screen repair. "The price point is good, the repairability is there," Justin Carroll, owner of the Richmond, Virginia-based Fruit Fixed smartphone repair shop told me. "Durability-wise, it's definitely going to break, no question about that." Soon after its release, electronics insurance company SquareTrade put Samsung's new flagship phone through its breakability test, a series of drops, dunks, and tumbles. It was deemed the most breakable phone of all time: "S8 is the first phone we've tested that's cracked on the first drop on ALL sides," SquareTrade wrote in a video demonstrating the drops.There's an obvious reason for this, of course. The S8 is made almost entirely of glass, and has barely any top or bottom bezel, which is why the phone is marketed as having an "infinity screen."

Comments

I laugh at smart phone fragility

[OzPeter]

My original Motorola RAZR is still going strong and I pretty well drop it onto a hard surface every other week. The back snaps off, the battery falls out. But the screens have never been cracked or damaged. And last week I got it so wet that it wouldn't turn on, so into the bowl of rice it went and the next day it was as good as new!

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[Gilgaron]

I do miss those aspects of dumb phones. Still, I like having all the extra functionality. It's like the difference between a bayonet style combat knife and a Swiss Army Knife. The former is more durable, but less convenient and has fewer functions than the latter, even if it may excel at the functions is has by a significant margin.

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[slazzy]

I just bought a unlocked phone from Costco, my $89 Acer Zest does pretty much everything a high end phone does once I add a 32gig sd card.

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[dreamchaser]

It is almost like different people have different use cases!

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[Joce640k]

They know the big screen will sell more. After that it's your problem.

Let's hope none of the buyers find out about protective cases. We wouldn't want all those repair shops to miss out.

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[DontBeAMoran]

Yes, exactly! If people would simply use cases for their smartphones they would be better protected!

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[OzPeter]

It is almost like different people have different use cases!

Yes .. and my use case is to be able to drop my phone and still have it work!

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[DickBreath]

My original Motorola RAZR is still going strong and I pretty well drop it onto a hard surface every other week.

Some say you can throw a classic Nokia 3310 at a brick wall and it will be undamaged.
But it's not true. There are known cases of damage where you can see chips or nicks in the brick wall.

Re:I laugh at smart phone fragility

[kamapuaa]

Wow, cool! A 3G phone with a .85 megapixel screen and the world's shittiest camera! Thanks for the advice, grandpa!

C'mon

[Necron69]

Only an idiot uses their $750 phone without a good case. I received my Otterbox Defender for the GS8+ two weeks before I got the phone. I've dropped it several times with no problems.

- Necron69

Re:C'mon

[OrangeTide]

I see people taking their super thin phones and stuffing them into a bulkcase case. And here I am with my medium thickness smartphone that people think is too big, yet without a case it no larger and it survives fine. (and costs half as much)

I would think that people who get a nice looking phone that breaks all the time would probably stop repairing/replacing it after a while and get something less conservative. If people behave how I think they behave then that can only hurt sales of the GS8.

Re:C'mon

[EvilSS]

Only an idiot uses their $750 phone without a good case. I received my Otterbox Defender for the GS8+ two weeks before I got the phone. I've dropped it several times with no problems.

- Necron69

Otterbox? WEAK protection. I keep my phone in a roll behind Pelican case.

Re:C'mon

[Necron69]

Personally, I don't consider thinness of a phone to be a great feature. I'd much rather have a bigger battery. Phone thicknesses are fine, and the rubbery case makes it much easier to hold onto. I haven't needed a thinner phone since my first Galaxy S model.

Thinness is a pure marketing gimmick, and contributes to the fragility problem.

- Necron69

Re:C'mon

[OrangeTide]

I have this conspiracy theory that it is possible to make thin phones that are not fragile, but it is more profitable to make ones that break. Plastic screens are possible, they aren't great, but they are possible. A steel framework (triangle shapes) for the body, surrounded by a titanium or carbon fiber shell would be rigid but thin and light. I think if this were an aircraft or spacecraft part that engineers would have been able to solve the issue, but since it's cheaply made consumer electronics there isn't as much of a push to create a durable item.

Would I pay $1K or more for a phone that could pry railway cars off their tracks? I don't know, I suppose I might. Now we just need to find 50 million other people that would and we can build a profitable business.

Re:C'mon

[Captain Splendid]

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's called Planned Obsolescence, and it's been going on since the fifties. Point being, there's no upside for manufacturers to make anything that lasts more than a few years.

Re:C'mon

[DontBeAMoran]

I received my Otterbox Defender for the GS8+ two weeks before I got the phone. I've dropped it several times with no problems.

That's good to know your Otterbox Defender survived several drops with no problems. But what about your GS8+?

Re:C'mon

[Mike Van Pelt]

My main criterion for a phone is that Seidio makes a case for it. I love their case and belt clip combination. I don't get the whole "make it so very very thing" nonsense, either.

I don't know if this applies to the S8, as I haven't touched one, but as much as I like Samsung Galaxy phones, they make them out of the slipperiest substance this side of greased teflon. It's easier to hold onto a wet bar of soap. That's another reason I want a case for them. I've had no trouble holding onto my S3 or S6 since I got the Seidio case. It's a much more "grippy" type of plastic.

Re:C'mon

[OrangeTide]

It's just a hobby right now. We hope it goes viral and brings a lot of viewers to our YouTube channel.

I'm not upgrading

[ckatko]

I'm not upgrading from my waterproof, durable S5 with easily replacable battery, SD card slot, and headphone jack, until they (Samsung or Apple) make a product that actually improves on it.

I really don't understand why people will buy "newer" products that are actually inferior. I mean, I get the "it's newer it must be better" people who don't have time to evaluate. But when you're spending $600+ on something, how can you not notice the LACK of features from your previous phone? Am I the only one who has to be careful with my financial purchases?

Re:I'm not upgrading

[TWX]

I went to Kyocera to replace my Galaxy SII. It's not the brand-new-bells/whistles phone, but at some point I realized I didn't really need or even want all of the latest bells and whistles, I wanted a durable, reliable phone that just always works.

Fashion over function

[geekmux]

"The S8 is made almost entirely of glass, and has barely any top or bottom bezel, which is why the phone is marketed as having an "infinity screen."

An infinity screen.

You know what else goes to infinity these days? Marketing fashion over function to the ignorant masses who love that shit.

So much for common sense design.

Re:Fashion over function

[fahrbot-bot]

"The S8 is made almost entirely of glass, and has barely any top or bottom bezel, which is why the phone is marketed as having an "infinity screen."

An infinity screen.

So much for common sense design.

Could be worse. Could be made with an Infinity Stone - holding *that* would be a bitch.

Re:Fashion over function

[hey!]

You know what else goes to infinity these days? Marketing fashion over function to the ignorant masses who love that shit.

So much for common sense design.

Well, in a world where silliness sells, silly design *is* common sense design.

For years cell phones rudimentary, and data services over the air were bad, proprietary, and costly. You had to pay for an add-on service on some carriers to get your photos off your phone. Then Steve Jobs picked the weakest carrier that was big enough -- in the US that was AT&T -- and made them an offer. That's how the stranglehold of carriers on phone features was broken, and the results were for many people a revelation. But not for those of us working on mobile apps before the iPhone ... to us this was how things should have been all along.

But as much as Jobs deserves credit for cutting off the carrers' balls, he also introduced the phone using public to the assumption that a flagship phone was supposed to be ground breaking. And maybe that was OK for the first few years, but ten years on now it's not a reasonable expectation. But until the public gives up the equation of pointless novelty with "cool", we're stuck with it.

SquareTrade Video

[Kunedog]

Here's a video of the drop tests:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It has a high dislike ratio and comments are disabled, which are often major red flags. Anyone know why?

Glass is good

[fustakrakich]

It doesn't melt and burn like plastic. So this phone should be relatively fire resistant.

What's Infinity? The number of pieces it becomes when you drop it?

fast fashion

[kiviQr]

Welcome to a mix of fast fashion and form over function that is making a ton of money for phone producers. Amazing that 98% of users buy glass back phones and cover them with ugly cases. So what was the point of glass back? $5 plastic cover was too durable?

Dear Samsung

[nightfire-unique]

I have one thousand US dollars I wish to give you in exchange for a phone with the following characteristics:

- Flagship specifications (processor, memory, etc)
- Removable/replaceable battery
- SD card slot
- Large battery (4000+ mAh)
- Water resistance and rugged(ish) design
- Proper sensor array: IMU, GPS, thermometer, hygrometer, pressure, ambient light
- Popular world LTE band support

I am not alone. Please address my market segment.

Re:Dear Samsung

[GuB-42]

You basically want a Galaxy S5, 2017 edition.