It really makes me wonder why more time isn't spent in making smartphones more durable. People tend to buy them at $100-$200 on contract, not realizing that if they break the phone, they won't get another one for $100-$200. It's more like $600-$800.
Sure, having the thinnest phone made entirely of glass is a really nice selling point in marketing material, but having a phone that lasts the entire term of your contract without needing to be coddled and have the form factor ruined by a bulky case just to protect it is even nicer. For comparison, the Lumia 920 is not incredibly thick or heavy and still looks quite nice, but it can handle an impressive amount of abuse before it breaks:
"It feels like a premium device" kind of grates on me. In most cases, it's code for "it's made of expensive materials that are really quite fragile". Like glass surrounding a rigid metal frame that guarantees it will shatter on impact with no room to absorb a blow.
Yes "feels like a premium device" is code for "made of expensive materials" or, more specifically, "made of expensive materials [assembled to a high degree of precision]." Talking about fragility is misleading: if I want a phone that doesn't get scratched, surely I'd prefer it be made out of glass rather than plastic? since one is much harder than the other. So, of the two, which is the more fragile? Answer: it depends what you're worried about.
True. But what's better, a phone with a plastic outside and a gorrila glass screen that might scratch on the back but the screen won't scratch and the phone won't shatter if you accidentally hit it with a baseball bar across a paves parking lot? Or a phone with a rigid metal exterior covered in gorrila glass that won't scratch but shatters if you drop it from waist height?
Sure, having the thinnest phone made entirely of glass is a really nice selling point in marketing material, but having a phone that lasts the entire term of your contract without needing to be coddled and have the form factor ruined by a bulky case just to protect it is even nicer. For comparison, the Lumia 920 is not incredibly thick or heavy and still looks quite nice, but it can handle an impressive amount of abuse before it breaks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=E3c8il_Q6SU