Do you put a case on your high-end phone?

Metal and glass. When it comes to high-end smartphones, we’re seeing more of this type of design decision. Sure, there are alternatives, and that’s great, but for the most part when we’re paying top dollar for a new smartphone, that comes with a design that goes out of its way to look and feel like a high-end device, too.

Not that that’s a bad thing, of course. It wasn’t too long ago when Samsung was making high-end smartphones that felt like toys, after all. But even Samsung has come around and made its Galaxy S6/S7 look and feel like a truly high-end handset. Whether that’s a good or bad thing really comes down to your personal taste, as most things do, but I’ve traditionally been a fan of the glass and metal. Plastic, while durable, just never had the same results for me, when paying the same amount of money.

But there’s something to be said about those plastic phones, right? After all, these are devices that we, typically, bring with us everywhere, and I feel like the longer we’re out and about, the bigger the possibility is for something bad to happen. I’ve luckily only had to deal with one shattered display so far (knock on wood), and it’s possible it would have happened had I had a phone that was more plastic than metal, but who knows.

And now there are rumors that, at some point here in the near future, Apple is going to launch a phone that’s more glass than metal. Now obviously if Apple does this, the glass would be something akin to Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3, or some equivalent, and Apple would probably brag about it not being able to shatter all that easily. But let’s face it: People would make it happen. Whether by accident or in “stress tests,” folks out there in the real world would find a way to break that iPhone. And if that’s possible, one simple has to ask: Is it worth it?

I’m sure that Apple, if they are making a glass-backed iPhone, is making a really attractive looking handset. And that certainly counts for something, especially when you want to show off your new phone to people. And they’ve had a glass iPhone in the past, too, with the iPhone 4s and its “aluminosilicate glass,” so it’s not like it would be completely unheard of.

So I have to ask: Is paying that much for a phone that could potentially break quite easily worth it? More than that, do you make sure that after you buy the phone, no matter how attractive the device might be, by putting a case on it? Or do you just avoid buying high-end devices altogether because of these things? Let me know!