UKC

Anyone got one of these? Is the gorilla glass properly tough?

I currently have an Ulefone, and it has been good, but charging is now not working reliably. I hope it can be fixed, but my other thought is to buy a refurbished phone and see if someone can refurbish mine as it would mean I wouldn't have time without a phone at a busy time of year. 

I was looking at other though phones, but the slimmer line of this is appealing, but I worry it won't be tough enough. 

I don't want a case, I want a phone which is up to the job. 

I work in the outdoors and I can be clumsy, so it does need to be properly tough. So, does gorilla glass hold up well enough?q

I wouldn't use any phone without adding a second layer of glass (screen protector). 99 times out of 100, for minor drops and knocks (but not 100/100!) the outer screen protector gets broken and can be replaced and the phone screen itself is unharmed. There are 4 phones in our family and I replace a screen protector about once a month! I also use a protective case/cover for every phone.

I haven't used a screen protector on my Ulefone and no problems at all with the screen. I have previously used the glass screen protectors on other phones and they crack at the slightest thing. I'm not convinced they are worth the hassle. 

Well I have an xperia and so does the Mrs and our son, we've had sony phones for years. Never had a glass break or any type of fault with any of them. Even dropping off my bike mount never hurt them. 

My work phones on the other hand usually last around a year at best, and the work phones barely leave the house or car. Samsung, blackberry and I phone all bit the dust. 

Some time ago I used to have unreliable phone charging, it becoming increasingly hard to plug the charger in properly to make a good connection. But I found you can simply clean out the phone charging socket with a pin and clear whatever pocket lint or other gunge that may have ended up inside. Nowadays I tend to do this maybe every 6 months or so at the very first sign of a squidgy connection, and I've never had a problem since. You can be really quite rough with it and it doesn't seem to risk damaging the socket.

Or change the charging cable, if it is micro USB (rather than USB-C) they are very prone to becoming wobbly and unreliable when they get old

Oh, that's worth a try, thanks! I think there might be something else going on as yesterday evening the indicator was showing as charging when it wasn't plugged in, but maybe gunk is contributing too?

It's USB-C. I have tried several cables.

If it's hardware, it's most likely on the phone side of the equation.

I had similar fun and games charging mine recently. Wouldn't always report as charging, would charge incredibly slowly etc.

What fixed it for me was turning off the phone and charging to 100% from my PC (no idea why other charging methods were flaky).

I think the phone needs to periodically "learn" what 100% is (following battery wear) or it doesn't know whether to charge/how much power to give.

The 10 mk 2 isn't a great phone - apparently - its a bit slow. The Mk 3 is much better. I've had sony since about 2012. The earlier ones used to have the digitiser attached to the screen, so one slight bit of screen damage meant they didn't work. That changed with the z5 / z5 compact. Now they seem to be much better. 

My family has z5 compact, xz1, compact 5 mk 2 all are happy. 

My daughter drops her phone quite often and hasn't broken the screen yet. My wife sat on her xz1 and cracked the screen, but its still working, and we have a spare screen, but haven't fitted it yet.

the xz1 and 5 are usb c

Always buy a case and a screen protector. For charging I use the magnetic ones, they're great. Plug the wee connector into your phone and it's there permanently, saves wrecking the connection point on your phone.

Nope, I buy phones which are designed not to break. A much better solution than adding all sorts of guff to a phone! 

Don't buy the sony then. A screen protector and a case is really part of the phone protection for phones like this...  most of the glass backed phones a really too slippery and much too fragile. Its a crazy design choice IMHO. Gorilla glass is good, but not that good.

I would be amazed if you could drop any sort of high end non-outdoor-specialist smart phone more than a couple of times without a case and it not smash. IME Gorilla glass isn't up to anything more than the smallest of falls, especially if dropped on a corner. It's a non starter, the benefit of it being slimmer and smarter without a case isn't worth the potential cost. Edit: I would also never any more run one with only a second glass screen.

(My previous phone was actually a fairly high end Sony, XZ1, and it smashed after a single drop from waist height one month into ownership. I had the screen fixed for ~£100 but the vibrate function never worked again. I have learnt my lesson!)

A high end Sony Xperia (or any high end Apple, Google, Samsung etc which is designed to look good) is not designed with breakability as a prime consideration.

A case and a screen protector aren't 'guff, they're basic protection that are cheap and do a job. But hey ho, carry on without them if you want.