The not so unbreakable phone

[chimera40]

Oh dear, how fked is this company. Would hate to be the guy the CEO goes back to shout at.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8450385.stm

[soad]

Unbreakable, my ass. It's always the clever marketing. There are ways to break most stuff.

[drivin_me_nuts]

That made me laugh and groan at the same time. The most public way to utterly destroy your brand instantly.

[glazbagun]

"Unbreakable" should go the same way as "waterproof" IMHO. You're just asking for trouble with any absoloute claim like that.

[AB]

Ouch. Embarrassing.

[FourWheelDrift]

I bet they never tested it with someone bashing the screen onto a sharp corner of a metal box. When they say unbreakable they mean accidents or dropping, never full bloody deliberate damage.

[Munter]

FourWheelDrift said:

I bet they never tested it with someone bashing the screen onto a sharp corner of a metal box. When they say unbreakable they mean accidents or dropping, never full bloody deliberate damage.

I'll bet the BBC guy told them what he was going to do though before hand. And the CEO probably went "Sure whatever". While any of the design/engineering team would have gone "Err...well no it won't take that, but you can jump up an down on it if you want..."

[Mattt]

He said you could drive a nail with it - which is a similar point impact to what he did.

[FourWheelDrift]

Mattt said:

He said you could drive a nail with it - which is a similar point impact to what he did.

If you were to use it to drive a nail in I don't think using the impact point of the screen is the favoured method, you'd use the side frame of the phone. Which is probably what the designers/tester used.

[Morningside]

Oooof.
What is much worse is this is now apart from being on the BBC site will now be on youtube and TV outtake programmes.
Great publicity eh? Sounds like they have killed their own market/product.


I think all companies should be very careful in what they put. I have some old 'Future proof' hardware that will never go out of date and will always keep up - according to the blurb.

[Beyond Rational]

I don't think it'll hurt them.

The product is clearly tough, most can see that what happened was unreasonable use.

They've also had huge exposure of their brand, if I needed a tough phone, I'd look at their products.

[mcflurry]

My old Nokia (5210?) was pretty tough - it survived "accidentally" being thrown dropped under a bus and being flung across a cafe hitting a wall.

I hated that phone, but it wouldn't break

[randlemarcus]

My daughter managed to break the screen on the Vodafone one of those. It might be toughened glass, but its still glass

[FourWheelDrift]

It's like the old "Shatterproof" rulers. Yes they don't shatter but they will still break if you constantly bend them.

[Chapppers]

so...exactly how do they propose making it "sharp metal corner" proof?

[FourWheelDrift]

By manufacturing it out of sharp metal corners.

[drivin_me_nuts]

... you can't.

But in the same vein you can't call something 'unbreakable' when quite clearly it is, in the most visible, permanent way possible in the media.

[malman]

they will just have to use broadband advertising strategies

"The new upto unbreakable phone now with unlimited* battery life"

*battery life has a fair use of about 8 hours

Edited by malman on Thursday 14th January 13:30