I Only Use My Phone Naked (No, Not How You Expect)

My phone, which is also my PC, is immensely important to both my personal and professional life—and yet I use it without a case. In fact, I haven’t used cases with most of my phones, and it’s been a more enjoyable way to live.

Cases Make Phones Ugly, Uncomfortable, and Dirty

I get why people put phones in cases. These phones are expensive, and cases are a cheap way to protect your investment. If all it takes are a few extra dollars to prevent dropping a phone from ruining your day, that seems like a small price to pay.

But the price is too high for me. No, it’s not about the money. I don’t like the way cases make my phone look. I buy phones based in part on their appearance, and I don’t see much point in paying more for such beautifully engineered and designed devices only to encase them entirely in what is usually cheap, and cheap-feeling, plastic.

I get wanting a thousand-dollar phone to be safe, but I would also like for a phone made of metal and glass to look and feel like one. Otherwise, I could have just bought a plastic phone.

Related

Your Phone Is a Fashion Statement, So Own It

Does it have the best camera? Maybe not, but I love how it looks.

A case not only leads to an inferior tactile experience, but it also traps in dirt and dust. Phones with cases may be in pristine condition when the case comes off, but they often have deep lines of grit caked along the edges of the screen.

Phones Are More Durable Than Ever

The transition from plastic phones to metal and glass initially made phones more fragile. It wasn’t that big a deal to drop an old Nokia or the original Razr, but dropping an iPhone 4 or a Nexus 5 resulted in a shattered screen (on the iPhone, perhaps a shattered back as well).

These horrors can still happen to a modern phone, but they’re much less likely to. Modern devices are built with significantly stronger frames that can survive such drops, often walking away with just a ding on the corner. It can take several drops to gradually weaken the integrity of a screen.

Phones have become the most resilient tech most of us own, able to withstand dust, being caught in the rain, or dropped in a river for half an hour.

You can’t tell, but I’ve dropped my Galaxy Z Fold 6 pictured in the photo below. A few times, actually. I’ve owned this phone for over half a year, and I could still sell it in “like new” condition (side note: yes, I do also carry around a stylus for my phone).

I’m not saying modern phones are indestructible. Drops to pavement or concrete will be felt much harder than a hardwood floor. Sometimes freak accidents happen and a phone shatters from sliding off a sofa at just the right angle. But with so much engineering going into making these devices survive for several years, I want to enjoy that work.

Phone Insurance Is Now Commonplace

Nothing about phone insurance sounds appealing. Nothing about insurance in general is fun. Yet the fact remains that phone insurance is now easy to get, and it’s often worthwhile. Such protection provides a certain peace of mind knowing that if I do shatter my phone, I’m not suddenly out hundreds of dollars on a repair or replacement.

With phone insurance or a protection plan like Samsung Care+, if I do accidentally drop my phone while stepping out of a car, it’s not the end of my relationship with that phone. It’s still a stressful inconvenience, but it’s one I have a plan to handle, and it’s just a matter of setting aside the time to go to a repair shop.

Related

Samsung Care+ Now Offers Free Galaxy Screen Repairs

You still need to pay for the subscription, though.

A Screen Protector Is Often Enough

I confess—my phone isn’t entirely naked. It came with a screen protector on the internal screen, as all foldables currently do, and I’ve opted to place one on the outer display as well.

I don’t recall ever shattering a phone screen. I have rarely even experienced cracks. Yet I do find my naked phones do pick up scratches whether from bumping against something in my pocket or from being placed on a table. Foldables can be even more prone to scratches, since they are designed for the outer screen to be facedown on a surface as the phone props itself up for easy viewing. This is one of the things that make foldables such good cameras.

Is a phone with a screen protector still naked? I’d accept an argument for either view, but I can say using a screen protector hasn’t stopped people from commenting when I pull out my phone: “I could never do that. I need a case.”

A Phone Sleeve Can Be the Best of Both Worlds

When I do feel my phone needs more protection, I have long used a phone sleeve as a middle ground. I get to have the untarnished experience of using my device, yet my phone is safe and protected when I’m not. Sure, a phone can still accidentally slide out of a sleeve and come away with a dinged corner, but it’s safe from the slow and gradual onslaught of microscratches that accumulate over time.

Right now, I find just a screen protector to be enough. I know people are concerned about foldables, but from my experience has shown both the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Z Fold 6 to be rock-solid devices. They’ve survived falls and walked away in better shape than my prior slab phones before them. A phone sleeve feels like enough, even if I only save that protection for exciting occasions when I’m more likely to be distracted and a little less careful.

I’m not arguing that you should ditch your case. You know yourself. I’m a particularly careful and attentive person much of the time, so I’m less prone to dropping things in general. I’m also sensitive to aesthetics and textures in a way most people aren’t.

For me, using a case creates more problems than it solves. A naked phone is not only the most beautiful one, but the one I love to hold.

SoC

Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 3 for Galaxy

Display

7.6-inch AMOLED inside display, 6.3-inch AMOLED cover display, both with 120Hz dynamic refresh rate

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a foldable smartphone that combines the functionality of a tablet with the convenience of a phone. It features a large, flexible internal screen that automatically picks up where you left off on the cover display.