No Stupid Questions

I would likely go case-less if it wasn’t for my dry hands, and the occasional need to have my phone sit on my leg (while I am driving) so I can go hands-free with it.

My problem is that any phone without a case (and about 99.999% of cases out there) has the phone being as slippery as an enraged hagfish. It literally leaps out of my hands with most operations, which is why I need a case -- to grip it effectively.

And now with my iPhone 15 pro max, I have been in a desperate search for any case which is sticky enough. As in: with the phone in the case, place it face-up on your open palm without gripping it and tilt your palm 30-45°. If it slides off, the case is too slippery. I’ve had sticky cases before, but it seems that everyone suddenly stopped making them some time after the iPhone X.

My phone is cheap and old as hell. I absolutely do not care of I drop it and it stops working. Actually it already did that, but unfortunately the disassembly and repair only took about an hour so it's gonna remain usable for a while. It is also a tank. Cannot fathom people who take care of their phones. It's so much easier to just not give a fuck.

Redmi 9T.

Made the mistake of buying an iPhone 15, it's so thin and boxy that it's uncomfortable to hold without a case and the stupid camera array sticks out so much it does not lie flat on a surface when put down, even with a case

I use a case and usually a screen protector. They get broken pretty frequently anyway.

I refuse to use a case on principle. The idea that you need a case to protect a phone from everyday use is so ass-backwards it hurts my brain. (and was not always the situation!)

It would be so much more space, weight, and cost efficient to simply engineer in the durability provided by a case through the use of proper materials and construction. But apparently marketing thinks nobody would buy a phone that looks and feels out of the box the way a phone with a case feels. So we end up with these thin, elegant, glass and polished aluminum devices... that most of the population has to immediately hide inside a bulky plastic/rubber case to have a chance of surviving 6 months.

Imagine if a carmaker sold a premium vehicle with a polished metal and glass exterior that you had to protect under a vinyl wrap to keep it from rusting and chipping under normal use... they'd be a laughing stock!

I tried to use my phone without a cover, but it's so thin that I don't like the feeling. So I went back to my cover only for the added thickness.

I used to use a case and protective screen, but never broke a phone from dropping or anything. So one day I just got tired of my phone feeling all huge and janky and stripped it down. Never went back.

Yes. No case. Why would I? I specifically got the phone because it's quite small, and feels nice in the hand. A case would ruin that.

I also have not dropped any of my phones once in the past ~10 years.

I haven't ever broken a phone when I've dropped it, so no case or cover. It goes in my pocket with keys sometimes but has no notable scratches after 2 years

When phones were made of plastic, yes

Like the Google Nexus 5X (with a vinyl on the back because they chose the shittiest rubbery coating that get sticky with permanent fingerprints)

Yep, I hate cases. Naked phone all the way 🤘

I use a case. And every phone I've owned over the last 15+ years has looked like new years after buying them.

Not only do they keep their value (if sold), but if given as a hand-me-down, they are "like new".

Worth it, IMO.

Yep, same iphone for six years now.

I 3D printed my phone case. I had considered going without a case, but the Snap 4 Luxe, which I absolutely love, adheres better to cases than the bare phone. That could be my fault, maybe I didn’t clean the phone or adhesive properly, but if I have the phone on a magnet sometimes the Snap stays behind.

So I found a case design someone else made, brought it into Blender (because I don’t know CAD), thickened the back to the same distance as the Snap, then made a hole for the Snap and made sure to include a lip to cover over its curved bezel. I printed the first few layers in a tough 68D TPU, then switched to a 95A TPU for the rest. The tough layers and the lip keep the Snap held to the phone even when the adhesive fails, and the softer TPU makes the case easy to put on and remove.

(This is like, my seventh iteration of this case, and it sure seems flawless for the past few weeks.)

This lets me use the Snap with as little wireless charging distance as possible. I found that some cases added to the inherent 2.5mm of the Snap are just too much distance to reliably charge using weaker qi chargers. With this setup I can wirelessly charge much more reliably! And since I thickened the back of the case, the magnets on the Snap now sit flush with the rest of the back, making qi2-based external batteries more manageable.

Bought a repairable phone and only use a screen protector now. If it were to break it's not that expensive a repair (never paid more than $500 for a phone anyways, seems ridiculous to me), and I've dropped it plenty of times and it hasn't broken yet in nearly 4 years. Doesn't seem necessary.

Never use a case but always use a screen protector as replacing the screen often costs almost as much as a new phone.

Work phone is not in a case because IDGAF. Personal phone, always Spigen or go home.

I've got a pixel 8 and it's honestly way too thin and slippery without the case.

Hell no. Case and screen protector always. The glass screen protector is also a privacy screen, I've cracked one so far in like 5 years. My case also holds my card.

Not using one with my fairphone, it's bulky enough already, the entire back is replaceable for cheap and the frame looks solid. I dropped it quite a lot, including on some hard surfaces, and it's only made a few superficial marks, like it scraped the frame's shiny coating in that spot, but that's about it.

I do use screen protectors though. They're cheap and are not as intrusive as cases. Just changed it after years of service actually, the thing was all fucked up with scratches and missing glass everywhere, and the actual screen under was absolutely spotless.

I have toddlers I think that answers your question

The only reason I started using cases is because they made the latest Pixels so low friction that they refuse to stay put on most surfaces.

Yes. Never had one, never needed one, never cracked my screen.

Just makes the phone unnecessarily bigger and uncomfortable to put in your pocket.

I always use a case and I never spend £1k on a phone. More like £300

case and glass screen protector

i once removed the case to clean it, and the slippery phone fell and cracked the back glass

also, in the period that i didnt have the screen protector, it got all rigged up by the house keys, and eventually cracked from a 50cm fall.

never again.

I was initially in the minimalist camp of just getting coverage for it and going naked.

Then someone stepped on it and I had to go through the whole ordeal of scheduling and getting it fixed.

After that I started applying screen protectors and using a case.

Most people I see in public don't have a case on their phone. But I also see a lot of people with fucked up phones and cracked screens, so maybe they should.

A lot of people also don't spent that much on their phone, or have an easy, cheaper way to replace it through their carrier. Mine for example, I can usually find a current flagship device for no money down and pay it off $20-30 extra on my bill if I was to get a new device for any reason, or use the protection warranty and only spend $100 for a replacement on my current device if I lose it or break it.

They could also be work devices, owned by the company they work for and simply DGAF.