Up to now, whenever I buy a phone, I get a screen 5D protector to protect against drops and scratches.

Is it still good to get one now or is Corning Gorilla Glass now good enough?

Yes.

One glass good, two glass better.

Do you know how armored glass is made? Concrete is your bullet. Be like armored glass.

@petergriffin didn't get that. You mean even though they will stop a bullet, you'll still see crack marks?

It always was good enough. Unless your pockets are full of sand.

@iiii I remember dropping the first itouch from my bed and the screen cracked like crazy... But they was like 10yrs ago

Don't then though always bought a screen protector but wondering is it still needed.

I mean I dropped my phones still occasionally but only the protector gets cracked now...

So not sure what would happen without it.

@donuts you still get cracks, but it’s just the outer layer. And unlike armored glass, you can replace it on your screen without actually replacing the screen.

Never used one, most i get is barely visible scratches

My co worker has an iPhone 11 and is one of the anti case anti protection glass. His phone is small cracks and is very careful about not dropping it. Annoyingly careful at times.

I think his phone looks worse than mine with a pristine case and protector.

When I’m at home I usually put it out of the case to enjoy it, unless I do something of course.

I have never been worried about cracking my screens.

@donuts Screen protector is like a religion, it works if you believe it works, and when it doesn't, it's never the screen protector's fault. Other than that, new smartphone glass is extremely resistant to scratches and will be fine without additional protection under normal circumstances.

Glass is glass. And glass breaks. Better break the cheap one.

Screen protectors good for protecting from scratches. Gorilla glass is pretty durable and I don't believe that screen protectors protect your phone screen from braking. Btw wtf is 5d protector? Does it protects your phone from time and parallel universe anomalies?

@Cyanide There's no guarantee you'll break the cheaper one; actually you're more likely to break the screen than the protector if your phone lands on its edge, because the screen glass goes all the way to the edge and the protector glass doesn't.

@hack 5d is the strength of the tempered glass... supposed to protect against a hammer.

Vs the thin film that supposed to protect against smudges

@donuts just dropping it is different. I doubt that a thin glass glued on a glass would protect the glass from shattering

@yellow-dog you get scratches? O.o

Better buy a phone for which it's cheap to replace display and glass. Handheld items are meant to be dropped, but few phones can withstand being dropped on hard surfaces without damage.

@donuts the point of tempered class is that it breaks so that it's less dangerous than regular glass; not that it doesn't break.

@electrineer not sure what you mean, I'm just wondering do phones now still need it/crack as badly or at all like the first iphones did.

That being said cracks and scratches seem to lower grade in value so better safe with an extra temporal glass protector that only cost a few bucks

@donuts the designs are tested with quite fancy machinery https://youtu.be/lDrdbHIo-W8

@electrineer I saw a cracked screen after the 1 meter still though?

And actually a few of my old phones had the micro-usb port sorta half functioning after a year...

@donuts That's pure (bad) luck. As much as we know about glass, it's still an unpredictable material with its internal structure somewhere between a liquid and a crystal. It might survive many drops from different heights, or it might fall just once from 10 centimetres and shatter for no apparent reason.

@donuts and it might be acceptable that it cracks in certain heights as long as it's still functional. They don't expect it to get through everything without some damage.

@Nanos fiberglass?

Damn, I don't know man. I never bought a screen protector in my life and not once have I had a cracked or broken screen. I had it scratched on my old old old android gingerbread phone back in the day, because I carries my phone in the same pocket where I carried keys. Lessons learned and my screen is perfect for all phones since.

@Hazarth ever dropped it, screen facing down?

@donuts I dropped it a couple of times, I have the corners of the phone a bit scratched. But I don't drop my phone often enough for it to be a variable. I didn't drop it once this year yet iirc. I don't understand how people keep dropping their phones all the time... Just hold it in your damn hand, It's not difficult!

@Hazarth hm... They're old, have shaky hands, have small kids, ...

Lots of reasons?

@donuts that would be a fair point, if the people I see with broken displays the most werent kids and adults in their 20s. You don't see that many older people with cracked displays, but I had classmates at uni who cracked theirs literally within a month of getting a new phone, pretty much consistently

@donuts honestly the statistics would match. The most common damage to a phone is a cracked screen, and the most screen time is achieved by young people, not to mention the age range for phone usage is still getting lower...

so if you hold your phone in your hand 10hrs a day, you're naturally more likely to drop your phone than me, when I hold my phone in my hand an hour or two a day at most...

it makes sense in a way, but at the same time it's kinda sad and funny at the same time

@Hazarth it also depends on what you drop it on. If you don't handle your phone when you're on a hard surface, you're unlikely to break it even if you drop it. Old people need both hands free when walking outdoors, so it's less likely they'll break their phone.