Question to open the week: when was the last time you scratched your phone?

While smartphone manufacturers spend millions to make their products prettier, faster, better, no one has solved the real problem we face every day - fig.

The problem of scratched screens has been known to us since the dawn of smartphone history. Scratches on glass are basically unavoidable, the more that we compromise - scratch instead of cracking - which is ensured by subsequent generations of Gorilla Glass.

However, since the producers decided that plastic is passe, and then that aluminum is also passe and the only remarkable material of the smartphone case is glass, the problem of scratches has become even more apparent.

Scratched smartphones are a scourge.

I handle used telephones very carefully. I never put them in my pocket with keys, I don't put them on dirty surfaces, I pay close attention that they are not in an environment that could harm them.

And yet, features always find a way to appear. These are the three smartphones that I have been using for a long time over the past two years:

Two-year LG V30 - worn by 90 percent time in case:

Sony Xperia XZ3 - an unexplained case, I really don't carry sandpaper in my pocket:

LG G8s - I've been using it for two weeks, I puff and blow - it already has two scratches on the screen

The problem of scratches occurs regardless of the price shelf. Cheap Xiaomi can get scratched, costing 5,000 can be scratched. zł. iPhone X:

There will certainly be commentators who will point out that "after all, just put on the case and apply tempered glass!" - and of course they will be right. Only that you don't buy a beautifully designed phone and then put it in rubber for PLN 50 (or even skin for PLN 200) and stick an extra glass on it.

Manufacturers, moreover, do not care about us hiding our electronic jewels in cases. After all, that's not why they donate hundreds of millions to develop design and colors, and then hundreds more to advertise this design and color, to then encourage them to hide their cheap accessories. If that were the case, hundreds of millions would go to designing cases, not smartphones.

However, when we wear our phones "bare", without any cover, we expose them to factors that cannot be managed.

A stray grain of sand in your pocket. A bit of dirt in the tray in the car's center console. Bad compartment in the backpack - just a small thing, the perfect style of an expensive piece of electronics is disturbed by a nasty crack, with which you can either live or cover it by buying a case that you didn't want to put on from the beginning.

The problem of scratched housing has long been solved ...

... only that in pursuit of current trends, manufacturers decided to reject proven solutions. I wrote some time ago that we need more plastic phones . I have been testing Pixel 3a XL for a week (review soon) and I maintain this opinion: we need more phones made of plastic, because you really do not have to cope with them as much as models made almost entirely of glass.

I don't remember ever having problems with a smartphone whose housing was made of polycarbonate. Let's take Lumie - of course the casing was scratched in them, but never so deeply or noticeably enough to catch the eye. Anyway, if the polycarbonate was all colored, and not just painted with paint on the top, the scratches were simply not visible.

I have never scratched a plastic Nexus 5 or Nexus 5X after it. Polycarbonate housings simply did not know this problem, especially those with a matte finish.

Yet another solution was to use bolder finishing materials on the backs. Anyone remember the leather flip Lumia 950 XL? Or a leather-like pattern on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 backs? They also had no problem with scratched covers.

In fact, even smartphones made entirely of aluminum did not have such a problem with scratches, and in any case it was scratched to incomparably more difficult than what we are dealing with now.

Only for several years, with the advent of hegemony of glass as the main finishing material in smartphones, the problem of scratches is completely out of control. You can't control it. You don't want scratches? Buy a case. You don't want a case? Live with features.

Manufacturers are reluctant to solve this problem.

At least, that's my impression when looking at the directions in which some companies focus their development budgets.

Samsung has just presented a 108-megapixel sensor designed for smartphone cameras. Has anyone over the past five years thought that there are too few megapixels on your smartphone? I do not think so. Most owners of the company's smartphone probably walk with the scratched Samsung.

Has anyone thought "I would like my smartphone to vibrate to the music!"? I do not think so. And in the photo above you can see for yourself how the vibrant Xperia XZ3 looks after a year of use.

Did anyone want to use the stylus on the phone like a magic wand, or perform alive Taekwondo gestures above the screen to navigate the smartphone interface? I do not think so. But Samsung Galaxy Note 10 costing PLN 4,149 and PLN 3299 from LG G8s will surely soon get the mesh of scratches that disfigure their beautiful design.

Apart from the already mentioned Pixel 3a, there is no signal from us from any direction that something in this matter should change in the near future. None of the major manufacturers are even considering using anything other than glass to finish the phone case, and no voices are heard for anyone to develop a fully scratch-resistant coating that could be used in the phone.

Sometimes I get the impression that this problem is everything on hand.

Thousands of accessory manufacturers are certainly not interested in smartphones without scratches. Because if the smartphone did not scratch, who in its right mind would put a case on it? And sooner or later most consumers buy some kind of "eraser" on the phone - either to protect it from scratches, or to cover scratches.

Manufacturers also do not have to care, because a) a scratched, ugly phone is a great motivation to replace the device with a new one b) the stream of money from accessory manufacturers for licenses cannot dry.

So I do not expect anything to shake in this matter, although I hope that the great success of Pixel 3a abroad will even contribute to the fact that polycarbonate at least partially returns to favor and will go to more smartphones.

Nobody, after all, tells producers to pour a child in a bath. However, it would be nice to have a choice - between a glass and a beautiful smartphone, but prone to scratches, and a plastic and less "premium", but better tolerates mechanical damage.

Am I asking too much?

And when did you last scratch your phone and would you be willing to buy a device less "premium" to avoid it? Comments are at your disposal.

Question to open the week: when was the last time you scratched your phone?