Whereas I've never used a phone case, feeling that it would negate the point of slim phones. I'm pretty confident with not dropping them though, as that had not yet happened since the dawn of smartphones. Nexus 4 with its glass back would slide off slippery surfaces by itself though, but gladly never broke.

You nailed it.

Clumsy cases absolutely destroy the elegance of these beautiful devices.

I'm not as confident about dropping them though.

However the Samsung Galaxy A3 I use has proved to be very durable.

Among casual drops, it has sustained multiple drops to stone floors from considerable heights and being violently thrown across the room (not by me).

The aluminium casing has some small dents and the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 screen has a few small scratches. Otherwise it's still in excellent condition.

Just for context: nearly 80% of US smartphone users use a case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/368627/us-protective-cas...

Don't these weird curved Samsung screens make the cases less useful?

Depends on the case I guess. I got a mid-sized case from Otterbox, which has slightly raised lips at the top and bottom of the case so it's quite unlikely that the screen hits the floor first.

Also, at least with the S8 series, the curvature is a lot less aggressive than Samsung's earlier curved screen phones (S7 edge series).