> How long will those tactile buttons last, particularly given that the device is meant to be used frequently and is frequently stuffed into a pocket?

Decades. Which I guess is too much for a world that's driven by "value engineering".

I mean, we actually have hard data for this. "Dumb phones" (even those that would run J2ME and had apps and stuff) can easily last for decades, and their buttons work fine after 5+ years of intensive use. In contrast, it's rare to find someone whose smartphone lasted more than a year without getting its screen cracked.

(Not sure about the stats for that one, but from my personal experience, a three year old smartphone that wasn't already replaced tends to have at least one screen replacement job behind it.)

In your personal experience, does no one use phone cases or what?

Of course everyone is using phone cases - without them, hardly any smartphone would last a month without needing a screen replacement.

(It was better a decade ago, when smartphones were still thick and made of hard plastic. Now that they're all thin and metal, they're too slippery to handle safely.)

I'm not using a phone case, never have. You can have a smartphone for many years if you don't mind micro-scratches. Just don't drop it too often from too high up.

This is outsourcing a problem solution to the user. And the covers are a mere workaround.

   * Shall not be needed for a well designed device.
   * Covers are ugly.
   * Make devices even bigger than they are already.
   * Don’t protect against high forces.

Don’t get me wrong. A cover reduces the risks. My phone is alive despite I don’t use one but that is luck (and some care).

Manufacturers get away with weird design decisions.

   * Hard (fragile) screens. Somewhat okay?
   * Camera lenses extending out of device body.
   * Camera bump extending out of device body.
   * Glued sealant instead of replaceable sealing rubber (Apple *does not* guarantee that the iPhone survives water - the glued sealant ages).
   * Glas backside to make it more fragile. Which improves Qi-Charging needed for metal bodies. Which wouldn’t be needed with polymers bodies.
  

And then there is the Nokia 5110. Surfing everything except water. And the next gen? Nokia built the antenna inside because they improved it. The didn’t sold „more is better“. Nokia improved the device itself :)

Feature phones were entirely different beasts. Screens were typically smaller, and much better protected (either with a platic window covering the screen or by the keyboard folding over the screen, which also protected the buttons). Likewise, the buttons tended to be much better protected (either when folded closed, or by having a keyboard on a slider). On top of that, they were very user hostile. Consider your texting example. Between cost and size, most people were repeatedly bashing each key on a numeric keypad to get a single letter. Few phones had touch screens (the screens were too small for them to be practical), so navigating through options was considerably more difficult.

Oh, I know that alternatives existed. Complete keyboards. Larger screens (but by no means large by current standards) with touch input complimenting the keyboard. I had one of them. Yet it was nothing compared to what we have today, and I doubt that we could have what we have today with what we had then (buttons!) without seriously compromising the size of the device or the durability of those buttons.

I've got a BlackBerry Key2 that runs Android. The only reason I am about to replace it is that it has a locked bootloader and I can't upgrade Android, and several key apps I rely on have dropped support for Android 8. (Hooray for "secure" bootloaders.)

It was made in 2019, if I could hand it to you I think you'd reconsider your beliefs about what is and isn't possible, it's a very well-made device, the keyboard is lovely. It has one pretty fun feature which might be counter to the spirit of this thread - the entire keyboard is touch-sensitive and functions as a touchpad area. Software support for this is hit-or-miss, but I'm going to miss it when I have to get rid of it for an all-touch device. Especially I will miss being able to easily use my phone when there's rain drizzling.

> it's rare to find someone whose smartphone lasted more than a year without getting its screen cracked, or three years without at least one screen replacement job

How? I've used smartphones without any case since the Galaxy S1 and I have never had a cracked screen.

But yeah, I definitely prefer physical keys too. Since the Blackberry Passport every newer phone was a disappointment. If they made a new one with updated hardware and unlocked Android I'd preorder it immediately.

> How? I've used smartphones without any case since the Galaxy S1 and I have never had a cracked screen.

The only smartphone in my close circles I know to have outlasted its usefulness without having its screen cracked is an LG P350 - my first ever smartphone (which incidentally was barely powerful enough to run its own OS; from then on, I always just saved up money and bought a flagship). Since then, I've seen friends getting new Pixels one day, and breaking their screens the next; in the Galaxy line alone, I had my S4 screen replaced twice, I personally replaced the screen in my wife's S3, my S7 died with a black screen after hitting the pavement (it was in a case, but the impact angle was unlucky); my wife just got the screen replaced on her S23. A family member broke a new Galaxy Tab when their briefcase hit the ground, etc. Same for cheaper devices too.

(EDIT: well, OK, my wife's Huawei P8 didn't live long enough to get its screen broken - 6 months in, it wasn't able to make a phone call without freezing. Replaced it with an S9, whose screen theoretically never cracked - instead, at some point, top half of the display got hue-shifted towards pink.)

Things got much worse when phones became glass/metal instead of glass/plastic; I personally am not brave enough to operate a modern smartphone without a case while standing on hard floor (bathroom tiles, or pavement outside).

I don't know - maybe myself and people around me all have really bad luck? Regardless, before smartphones, neither the screen nor the buttons were particularly fragile; you only ever worried about breaking the plastic case (or the flip mechanism in flip phones) after using the phone as a hammer one too many times...

> never had a cracked screen

That is interesting. People usually just buy screen protectors and call it a day since screens are pretty fragile and phones hate gravity.

Possible reason/s for not having a cracked screen for 15 years:

1) No kids around

2) No wife/fiancé around

3) not much of a social life

4) never walked in public with phone in use

5) phone only used in certain places with carpets to cushion fall.

6) only ever had 2 smartphones. The other is the beefy CAT phone.

7) not a sports fan

8) the phone is hardly ever used for anything more than a simple call or text.

Is it any of the above?

> How long will those tactile buttons last

Button manufacturers rate their products for this kind of thing. ie. "10k cycles" (not that high), "1M cycles" (better), etc.

So it really depends upon the device manufacturer to pick something appropriate.

Random examples:

• https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/push-button-switches/1336473

Datasheet for that has 10k cycles: https://docs.rs-online.com/512f/0900766b8137f3b1.pdf

• https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/push-button-switches/1759621

Datasheet for that lists 1M cycles: https://docs.rs-online.com/4ef8/0900766b81680212.pdf

> How long will those tactile buttons last

I can say without a doubt that I've had more touchscreens fail on me in my life than buttons. This is despite buttons being far more common for most of my lifespan.