Smashing sleek smartphones is bad
The iPhone is all the rage these days. It’s that cool multifunction device driven by the most powerful smart phone advertising campaign on the market. Sure there are Android phones, Blackberries, Palm Pre, Treo and the like, but you can’t tell me that the first high-tech phone that comes to the minds of most people ISN’T the iPhone. Now that the iPhone 3GS has hit stores, the fever rages on.
What do you get with any iPhone? I am a happy owner, so I’ll tell you that the merger of cell phone, handheld E-mail/Internet device, iPod, gaming system and personal assistant is an unbeatable combination. It also looks cool, which for better or worse is a strong selling point. I don’t exactly care for AT&T, but I understood and agreed to swallow the evil when I entered into my contract. I haven’t needed a payday loan or quick cash to help me pay the bill, but only because I’m budgeting well.
Yet there is an even deeper evil buried with the iPhone that I thankfully have not experienced and hope that I never will. According to Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch, that piece of hardware is an “accident magnet.”
Like a “Slip n’ Slide”
The iPhone 3GS, 3G or first generation 2G can easily slip out of your hands and onto the ground. The slick design looks sexy, but it doesn’t exactly provide a lot of safe gripping surface. If you go with a protective case (I do), you protect the unit but sacrifice the sleek curves that have made it the phone to die for. Many people don’t want to let go of those looks, so accidents do happen.
Kincaid reports that SquareTrade has released study results that indicate that over 20 percent of iPhones have suffered damage in the past 22 months. Most often, it is a cracked screen. From a manufacturing standpoint, the iPhone fares better than its smart phone competitors. Compared with the iPhone malfunction rate of 9.9 percent over the past 22 months, Blackberry had a 15.3 failure chance and Treo had a whopping 19.9 percent. And with each iPhone generation, internal failure has decreased.
But those dropsies are fatal
When the iPhone meets the pavement, it doesn’t usually fare well. Two-thirds of all dead phones resulted from drops per SquareTrade’s findings. Of those, 25 percent came from water damage (dropping the phone into a toilet or pool). In total, at least 80 percent of iPhone failure is due to accidental mishandling, per the study.
I’ve already discussed why the iPhone is accident-prone. It’s a slippery fish. About half of the surface area is the glass screen, which you don’t exactly want to squeeze tight. Thus, it could be said that this is a design flaw in the product. Is this intentional? In my opinion, it certainly is. The automobile industry designed the parts in their vehicles to break down over time so that you’d have to replace them (and eventually, buy a new car). The same principle holds true with any other kind of product. It drives revenue.
And AT&T doesn’t help matters
Their replacement programs are expensive. Depending upon where you look, replacement screens can be had for as little as $50 to $80, but it can be as much as $200. It pays to shop around. AT&T charges you based upon how much time you have left until you’re eligible for an upgrade, but this isn’t unique to them. That carriers subsidize the cost of the phone as part of a contract is great… until you want or need an early replacement!
Kincaid clues us in to a great resource if you’re looking for a warranty for your iPhone. SquareTrade has an inside track on the data for their studies because they are actually in the business of selling these warranties. But you could also say that they’d be biased toward selling their product to iPhone users. SquareTrade’s charges around $77 for two years, says Kincaid. This includes accident coverage. I’m betting on my protective case as insurance, but if you’re less daring than I am, this could be a great deal to protect your investment. Otherwise, you’re going to need a payday loan for quick cash when an elephant sits on your iPhone 3GS.
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