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Comment by pjbrunet | Hacker News Reader

What I want to know: Why can't these phones use plastic screens? Good acrylic is more clear than glass, lighter, safer, more durable. I wouldn't be shocked if iPhones were designed to shatter easily.

I'm seriously thinking of switching back to my ancient Blackberry: plastic screen that doesn't crack, battery lasts a week, make calls by pressing one button, I can turn it off and on easily...

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Having had several android phones, I can definitely say the gorilla glass 2 on my nexus 4 works and feels a LOT better than any other phone I've used regularly. (I don't like the slick back so much, have a rubber case for that reason)... I've only dropped it once (in a parking lot) and lucky it didn't break.

I have seen plenty of plastic phones break too. I'd rather have something that works better in my hand.

The capacitive technology that powers multitouch screens requires (or works much better with) glass, I believe. Also, LCD technology itself requires glass. The less and thinner the layers, the closer it feels like your finger gets to the image, and the better the UX is. There are iPhone cases that essentially do what you are suggesting with a plastic overlay.

Citation needed - from what I've experienced most older Android devices have plastic screens and multitouch works fine, and they don't break when dropped.

If there are glass layers in there somewhere, maybe they're somehow protected by the plastic. Or maybe the all-out antiscratch optimized glass in iDevices is just much more brittle than regular glass.

Me too, my Bold was so much better. I miss that week of battery life, I'm forever charging this thing. Admittedly the iPhone does more, my bb browser sucked, but the camera was great, the damn thing could get run over by one of those stupid big pick up trucks and still work and the keyboard was a million times better than touch on the iPhone. I switched because I got sick of waiting for bb to bring out something new. Finally they have so maybe it's time.

I think glass seemed cooler so they went with it, maybe the front needs it for their current tech in screens, but making the back on the 4 out of glass was just bad design.

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