While I resent the accusation, I have from time to time been branded as clumsy. I used to rarely drop things, but in more recent times I’ve found myself knocking over glasses, ripping clothes, and damaging a frankly stupid amount of phones; most of these were test units, but still.
Despite this tendency for pricey flagship phones to hop out of my hands or decide to miss my pocket, I never use a case with such smartphones. Even with some of the best foldable phones – the most fragile of handsets – I eschew the case life.
Am I an idiot? Probably. But I do like to see the industrial design of the best phones, rather than swaddle them in less-than-lovely plastic.
Equally, all the boasting about the best Android phones making use of Gorilla Glass has encouraged my apathy when it comes to extra phone protection. But then one falls, either by my own hand or though sheer physics, to the floor, and cracks, chips or dents.
Except, that is, for the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
I’ve harped on about the benefit of titanium on phones, which has helped the large iPhone withstand all manner of chassis punishment; it won’t patina though.
But I’ve yet to extoll the brilliance of Apple’s Ceramic Shield glass. Introduced with the iPhone 12, I've always simply assumed it was Apple’s answer to Corning’s Gorilla Glass. Yet I now feel I’ve slept on how good Ceramic Shield is.
In some 10 months of use, my iPhone 15 Pro Max has gone through the wringer. It’s slipped off my sofa, bumped into my desk, and fallen to the ground, and each time it's emerged unscathed.
Shields up!
The most impressive example was back in August when I was visiting Liverpool. I chucked the phone onto a hotel bed, and given the heft of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it bounced with gusto from the duvet and flew through an open bathroom door to land face-down with a sickening clatter on the tiled floor.
I thought “that’s it, the phone is done for,” and thanked my foresight for having a spare Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to hand.
But as I gingerly lifted the iPhone from the floor, turning it over with dread, I saw that it was totally undamaged. I couldn’t find a single ding or dent in it – even the protruding camera module looked fresh and fine.
I was genuinely surprised. Such falls have ruined other phones that have had the misfortune to trigger clumsy-Roland mode.
And it had me thinking that despite my love of the Action button, or the consistency of the camera systems, Apple's Ceramic Shield glass might just be my favorite feature of recent iPhones.
So if you’re after a durable phone that also looks stylish, rather than doing an impression of a brick, I simply have to give the Ceramic Shield iPhones my seal of approval – you go hunting for one on our best iPhone deals page.
