Do we really need screen protectors anymore?

The film screen protectors are useless in my opinion for.more than scratches. Ive gone through 5 glass screen protectors in the last yr and every time it saved my phone from a cracked screen weather its from a fall or keys. All my phones from my kids/wife/me have a shock resistant case with a glass screen protector $30 a phone is way better than $150+ and down time for a replacement every time we drop it functionality is way more importamt tha looks. I hate the glass iphones and the glass like backed androids.

No.

I have never used a screen protector or even a case. I am just extremely careful with my expensive mobile devices. Every time I hold it I use an Iron Grip. I keep the screen clean and free of any grit that may scratch it. I know people can be clumsy from time to time and I do stupid things too.

I had a pre - iPhone Palm Treo, one of the first smart phones. My roommate loved it and one day he gave me a case that had a flap that snapped over the screen and he gave me a belt loop pocket bag too. When the phone rang by the time I got it out of the tight fitting pocket and unsnapped open the cover, the caller had hung up. That's when I decided "Fuck it. This phone is living naked."

When I hold my phone I am always worried that I will break it, so I have never broken one. I keep my phones for years and they have always died before they break.

Being careful is job #1.

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My hand is more than an iron grip when im at top of a pole

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No one pushes you to buy the most expensive phone.
My Moto G Play cost 150,- bucks and it is completely fine.

I would say screen protectors are still recommended.

I had my phone sitting on a battery bank (screen down) and when the phone slid off of the battery bank, it had a noticeable scratch on the screen. A single grain of sand between the two was the culprit.

Gorilla glass is good, but it's still vulnerable to scratches.

I have an iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4S never a screen problem. My niece has broken her iPhone 5 or 6 three times.

I have always considered it a good investment to get a screen protector and a case of some kind. Most of my stuff looks new when i stop using it. New enough that people will buy it off me and continue using it.

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The only protection I have done is a rubber based case for drop impact protection. ridged cases do nothing but transfer energy.

Other than than I drink get drunk and wake up with my phone in my butt crack like any fellow.

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I had a asus memo tablet that i dropped to the floor from the side of my bed everynight as fell asleep watching youtube. :slight_smile: Do not know how that thing still works.

I think glass screen protector are a good way to avoid to break the glass (and potentialy the display) on the first drop. Screens on phones are getting bigger and bigger so they're more fragile. 10$ is more than an acceptable price to avoid paying a lot more for a display assembly and wait for the phone to be repaired.

I use replaceable matte screen protectors as I often have dust on my fingers, ending up in scratched screens.
I don't imagine it'd protect th screen from shattering into a Bazillion pieces if I dropped it though.
So far (tempting fate here) I haven't had a shattered screen in the 15-17 years of having mobiles (or Handies in German? Not sure, but heard it once, and found it Hilarious)... yet... (will update tomorrow when disaster strikes :slight_smile: )

I wonder if anyone with forum skills might be interested in running a poll?
Case+protector, case only, protector only, bare nekked Or fith option no phone, Stallman/Lunduke style

the latest Gorilla Glass is pretty good, but recently Apple just gave GG $200,000,000 to make a better glass

Which is interesting because Apple (i'm sure) makes $$$ replacing cracked screens. Are they getting sick of it, or are they trying to make consumers happy?

For all the people using glass screen protectors and claiming they provide impact resistance, is there any proof of that helping? If the protector breaks and the screen doesn't, that's not an indication that the protectors "saved" the screen. All that indicates is that the protector shattered.

I don't mean some video of a phone surviving an impact. I want a scientific explanation of how a few layers of glass can dissipate energy in a meaningful way.

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It's good to question things, your comment made me do a little research. First of all: It seems the T9 branding does not mean it has got nine layers, I am sure I have read this, but am unsure whether it was a marketing lie. Further research will have to be done. Secondly: there is a silicone adhesive between the screen and the protector. Third: Gorilla glass is also tempered glass, and Corning, the manufacturer, is definitely a market leader, however their primary focus is more than strength, for instance thinness. Fourth: the hardness can be looked up, and 9H is the strongest tempered glass screen protector I can find. Am on mobile so I don't know what the hardness of gorilla glass 5 is, i could not find it.

However: I'd say even though my first explanation is flawed, I can still see the principle being true. Adding a layer means the pressure will become distributed over a larger area. Even if we assume the protector is not as hard as the gorilla glass, it can still help distribute the pressure before it breaks. Let's say a pressure at a point with a given force will break even the gorilla glass, however if we disteibute the pressure to a larger area, even if only for a very limited time (like in a car crash, 50+ g for a split second and after that only a couple of g's) until the protector breaks while the speed/force is slowed down so the remaining pressure is not enough to break the gorilla glass.

Back when I had an iPhone 3Gs I had a screen protector, mainly because the glass back then was fragile and scratches were a real issue. Later when I upgraded to a 4Gs I decided to take a gamble with gorilla glass and not use a screen protector after seeing someone else's who is much more rough on his tech than I am and it had a minor ding in the glass you couldn't see but could feel. My experience was the same after several years of heavy use, only minor blemishes that could be felt but not seen.

My wife got an iPhone 5 and got a screen protectors and skins on it. It eventually died when she put them into tight jeans and sat on it, bending the phone. Screen protector won't help against that.

Later I received an iPhone 5Gs from work and again lived dangerously with no screen protector. The upgraded gorilla glass never had a single blemish the entire time I had it. Now I have a personal iPhone 6s and again, no blemishes or issues so far. I've dropped the phone onto rough concrete, even had it skitter sideways and no problems.

My secret? I always buy a decent quality case that has a small lip that sticks up above the level of the screen. The case takes the brunt of the damage. It seems the edge of the glass is the most vulnerable to cracking and the like. If you can protect that you've eliminated most of the chance of damage to the glass. I also never put anything like keys in the same pocket as my phone and don't sit on it if I can help it.

I totally agree! And I can understand the perspective from which this energy dissipation is explained, but it doesn't seem to me there's any reasonably backing beyond this explanation that's sort of floating around. I tried to find research on energy dissipation both from direct impact (think like a hammer strike directly to the screen) and from an edge strike (a corner hitting the ground during a drop). The reason the explanation you've given causes me to question it so much is that the same explanation is used to describe how a protector like this can defend against a direct screen projectile impact and an edge impact.

For a direct impact (hammer strike) I've been trying to sort out whether or not the area dissipation would be significant. Obviously the impact won't be dissipated over the entire screen, as the glass screen protector isn't completely rigid. So is a point impact being dissipated over a 1 square inch area or a 0.01 square inch area? I think the energy dissipation would be over a smaller area, such that the effectiveness of the screen protector is really negligible.

As for a corner strike, the point of highest energy is going to occur at the corner in question, and is going to be present in the glass before any shock can be transferred to the protector at all. Again, it doesn't make sense a rigid object adhered to the screen would be a reasonable vibration or impact damper.

I wish there were reasonable sources here instead of marketing materials that just throw buzzword soup at you.

Let me clarify, I have not been addressing corner strikes. I can follow your argument that in this situation a protector will not help. Regarding the dissapation from a front hit to the screen, remember that the difference from 0,01 to 0,02 square inches is a doubling of the area, and thus a halving of the pressure per 0,01 square inches. So I don't think we have to get into the full square inches for it to be effective.

On single-ply glass, you carry a greater risk of compromising it if there's a scratch on it.

At my previous job, we used corning slides treated with potassium(essentially gorilla glass). If a slide had any etch marks, corner chips, or gouges, it would be considered structurally compromised, as the damage would quickly propagate from that point if you werent careful.

In theory, using a screen protector on a new glass surface provides a buffer, since the surface you are trying to protect has not been structurally weakened..
That said, even if you had significant scratches on your screen, it doesnt necessarily indicate that it's ready to explode; just that the screen has been structurally weakened.

I only ever expected mine to protect the screen from scratches/ect........ from daily use. Never from being dropped ?