SubscribeGazelle, a trade-in site for high-end consumer electronics, has been keeping track of the cities that send in a disproportionate share of the broken phones it has received.
It turns out the southern United States is home to the most careless smartphone smashers, with Tallahassee, Fla and New Orleans topping the list. In New York, the further east you live, the more damage you are likely to do. Both Staten Island and the Bronx made the list.
Overall, the region that takes the most care of their phones (or at least wouldn’t dare send broken ones to Gazelle) was in the West, with one exception: Bakersfield, Calif.
| Rank | City | Percentage of Phones Traded in That Are Broken | ||
| 1 | Tallahassee, Fla. | 21.29% | ||
| 2 | New Orleans, La. | 21.12% | ||
| 3 | Bakersfield, Calif. | 20.63% | ||
| 4 | Bronx, N.Y. | 19.88% | ||
| 5 | Virginia Beach, Va. | 19.23% | ||
| 6 | Oklahoma City, Okla. | 18.9% | ||
| 7 | Memphis, Tenn. | 18.68% | ||
| 8 | Baton Rouge, La. | 18.44% | ||
| 9 | Staten Island, N.Y. | 18.16% | ||
| 10 | Boston, Mass. | 18.13% |
The funny part is I can pretty much agree with this. Almost everywhere I go I see several shattered iPhone screen or a broken Android screen, and a few times I’m tasked to order replacement parts for out of warranty devices and repair them (which is getting increasingly more difficult too). I’ve started calling people “bandwagoners” in a friendly way for when they drop their phone and break it. Laptops are included in the above since I see a ton of cracked screens. If the phone doesn’t have accidental warranty, there are constantly folks trying to game the system to… Read more »
This is why I don’t take my cell phone out on my daily power walks. I lost a phone that way when it fell out of my pocket. I take my iPod and FreedomPop instead, when I think I need it. I’d know right away I lost the former when the programming I listen to stops, and I can still sleep if I only lost an $80 device vs. a $600 one. I keep my phone in a rubberized case and in my pocket. I don’t trust those belt clips, and I don’t like putting my electronics on display. The… Read more »