Nexus 4: How's that glass back holding up?

Foxy Roxy said:

Wait... those cracks / scratches are most likely caused by your own fault and you're requesting for a replacement?

Seriously?

---------- Post added at 11:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------



How is it a defective product when you're the one who broke it?

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Foxy Roxy said:

If you say so. lol.

& how am I bitter? I already have my phone.

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elliot.newnham said:

Google sold you in good condition, you broke it, now you want them to fix it? If it is a manufacturing defect that leads to easily broken glass than I guess that's a case. But if you drop it on a metal bar or hardwood floor its your fault.

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elliot.newnham said:

Well I don't think I was saying your phone was part of this issue, if it came defective, send it back and get a replacement. It's unacceptable to sell a phone with scratches and I agree with you... My phone arrived already opened with the side plastic bits off and the package was a little used...

But for others who have pictures of their phones with obvious falls, or descriptions of how the back screen cracked. You have a manufacturer's warranty which doesn't cover accidental drops/breakages. I really don't think XDA should be endorsing this kind of behavior. If there is a manufacturing flaw with glass that just breaks then I think that is another story and should be directed at LG.

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As the OP, let me say, for the umpteenth time, that the purpose of this thread is for people who actually have the Nexus 4 to discuss their experiences with the glass back (good or bad). The purpose is not to snidely deride and critique people's comments about the phone or their attempts to seek some redress from Google, for what they feel is a flawed design. If you have nothing to say but to be snide to other people, please go elsewhere and don't clutter this thread with purposeless comments that are clearly not meant to be helpful or kind. If you think that this thread is ridiculous, please ignore it. I, for one, do not jump into threads that I think are pointless in order to arrogantly tell other people what they should be talking about. I just ignore them. Let people have the conversations they want to have.

unisound1 said:

I just dropped my phone about 1 FOOT between my couch and it hit the metal railing and that's all she wrote for the back glass. When I say I dropped the phone it actually slid off the couch and into the crack due to the slipperiness of the phone. I will be calling Google Monday to complain. IDK if that will help any but it's worth a try...

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Sorry to hear about your phone, unisound1, that's a bummer. Thanks for posting and providing the images of how the back cracked.

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To those who said the glass back does not make this phone more fragile, because the word "Gorilla" has been placed before the word "Glass," and any time you use the word gorilla in the same phrase with the word glass you make that thing industructable, well, here we are. Just yesterday I said that sooner or later these glass backs are going to cause problems and shatter. One day later, we see the first instance of this. And it's less than a week since the phone came out. The phone didn't even fall that far (one foot, as compared to say a phone slipping from someone's hand onto the sidewalk).

I forget who it was, but one of the reviewers with a pre-release unit did warn that not only is the back fragile, but that the back also makes the phone more slippery and likely to inadvertently slip from surfaces. Sounds like it's exactly this combination of problems that befell unisound1.

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As someone else said, I still might buy this phone if there's ever a 32GB version, because the price is right for this quality of a phone. But the unnecessarily fragile back does concern me. People who say, "if you're so worried about the back, don't buy it," are just missing the point. I started this thread to try to get some information from owners of the Nexus 4 about how the glass back is holding up. It should be possible to have a conversation about this, without people getting all defensive of the Nexus 4, like I kicked their puppy. I like the Nexus 4 a lot and think is very well made in many respects. But that doesn't mean I feel the need to close my eyes, cover my ears, and pretend that the phone is prefect. I just want to be able to have an adult conversation about the glass back an its potential pitfalls.

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Sorry again, unisound1, about your phone. Hope you're able to work something out with Google.

Why is everyone so worried about the BACK glass breaking? If I dropped the phone I'd be a whole lot more concerned over the front SCREEN breaking. The glass on the back cracking would be annoying, but it won't hurt the function of the phone. The front breaking obviously would, and every single smartphone has a glass screen.

cb474 said:

I agree that the phone looks quite elegant. It's a nice design, from an aesthetic point of view. But that, I think, will be ruined by putting ghost armor and/or a bumper on it. I really do not like the touch or feel of screen cover materials. And bumpers totally change the appearance.

So what's the point of the elegant design, if you have to cover it up to protect the phone? And if you don't cover it up, then you have the unnecessary risk of a glass back breaking. It's a lose lose choice.

That aside, I really don't think the fact that no one has posted about the back shattering yet means much. The phone is only a couple days old. What's striking it that there are already a number of cases of cracks and that review units were getting damaged even before that phone was released. That to me does not forbode a back that is very durable.

And the fact that there is yet to be a known case, in only a couple days, of a shattered back still does not respond to the point that the glass back is a completely unnecessary risk, no matter how much better Gorilla Glass 2 is than the first verion. There is no logical way that having a glass back makes the phone more durable than not having one. It's a choice of elegant looks over practicality. And there are other ways to come up with elegant looks (I also like the polycarbonate shell designs--which in Nokia's defense, they invented with the N9), so the glass back is an unnecessary choice at that.

Also, are we sure that the back is Gorilla Glass 2? As I noted in my OP, the demo phone I saw in the T-Mobile store already had a hairline scratch on the back (the day they got the phone). And Android Central reported similar scratches on their review unit. That surprises me. I'm skeptical that Gorilla Glass 2 is going to be shatter proof in a fall on a hard surface, but I really expected it to hold up to minor scratches better. Most Gorilla Glass screens do. So I wonder if they used a cheaper material on the back. If not, then I am not super impressed with Gorilla Glass 2 as far as scratches go.

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1. Glass was a design direction pushed by LG and they were adamant on it being included, NOT GOOGLE
2. almost all of the nexus 4's antennas are built into the back cover so glass is used because it's radio transparent. They *could* have used plastic but everyone was complaining about "oooooooooh the nexus sucks it dosnt feel 'premium,'" " cheap plastic crap again" etc. and again, LG insisted.
3. No matter what material they use to make the back, someone will have something negative to say about it. Plastic is cheap, glass breaks, metal just doesn't work. there's literally no winning material.
4. hairline crack, big deal. get a bumper/case if you want. Design is always tradeoff.
5. yes the glass is GG2
6. all glass scratches when in contact with silica (sand), nothing we can do
7. GG is not shatter proof, it's shatter resistant
8. GG2 has exactly the same coating as GG. The only thing that's different is the ion treatment where they add the compression to the surface of the glass.

kindiboy said:

No it's not.

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Yeah, it is. Apple has just been cagey about acknowledging their use of Gorilla Glass in the iPhone.

James.UBC said:

1. grip
2. process difficulty/scaling
3. way way way way way worse durability, not only to major drops/accidents.

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I was being sarcastic for the sake of making a point, when I said, why not just make the entire phone out of gorilla glass. You're missing my point and responding as if I were being literal. The point, which seems to elude most people, is that adding glass surfaces to the phone does not make it equally durable because it already has a glass screen. The more fragile parts there are, the less durable the phone is. It doesn't have to be perfectly resilient, as some fantastically suggest, but a phone shouldn't be more fragile than necessary just to have a pretty pretty glossy back that shines and makes people feel good. It's not an art object that you keep on a pedestal, it's a practical device that you carry with you and needs to be able to withstand, as best as possible, the ups and downs of daily use. There are plenty of good, aesthetically appealing, functional designs that do not gratuitously add fragile parts.

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I feel like the people who need to defend the Nexus 4 against any critique of any part of it, just want to act as if the phone is perfect and can't possibly have a poor design choice about any element. It seems like people can't like a phone and also admit that it's not perfect. It's very black and white, simplistic thinking.

And the people who somehow think they can say they won't drop the phone and magically it will never happen are fooling themselves. No matter how careful you are accidents happen. People are going to drop this phone. LG/Google should have done what they could to minimize the risk of damage, not enhance it.

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That aside, as the OP, the point of this thread was to ask what experience people are having with the Nexus 4 who actually own it. Have they dropped it? Has anything happened to the back? How's the back holding up?

I'm really not interested in people's defense of a design choice that obviously makes the phone more fragile. Is it aesthetically appleaing? Yes. But, If you want to believe that glass doesn't shatter, even magical unicorn powered Gorilla Glass, then I can't help you.