Live Here? Your Smartphone Screen Is Probably Cracked

Live Here? Your Smartphone Screen Is Probably Cracked


E-commerce trade-in site Gazelle.com put together interesting data on the top to cities that have traded in broken and damaged smartphones for cash.

Gazelle.com offers two main services. The first is cash for pre-owned consumer electronic devices that users can send in to the company. By looking up devices on their site, Gazelle can make cash offers for devices, and then send packaging, if accepted.

The second is the Gazelle ecoATM service, which is a series of kiosks around the nation that customers can drop-off damaged or broken tech devices to receive cash instantly. The Gazelle ecoATM service is great because it provides a way for customers to use Gazelle without having to ship damaged devices.

The top 10 cities with damaged smartphones, according to Gazelle.com data, are:

  1. San Gabriel, CA
  2. Irvine, CA
  3. New York City
  4. Chicago
  5. Brooklyn, NY
  6. Baldwin Park, CA
  7. Los Angeles
  8. Atlanta
  9. Houston
  10. San Francisco

The top cities with damaged smartphones, according to Gazelle ecoATM data, are:

  1. Houston
  2. San Antonio, TX
  3. Dallas
  4. Atlanta
  5. Indianapolis
  6. Fort Worth, TX
  7. Oklahoma City, OK
  8. Albuquerque, NM
  9. Louisville, KY
  10. Cincinnati

Based on the above, smartphone owners in Houston and Atlanta are especially clumsy with their smartphones.

In a statement, Gazelle claims that the top 10 cities that recently traded items at Gazelle.com sent over 2,000 items, while Gazelle ecoATM accepted almost 25,000!

The site offers some handy tips to avoid cracking smartphone screens:

  1. Disrupt the [smartphone’s] fall to prevent the phone from falling on its front. That way, the back and frame will take on some of the pressure and will slow its pace as it plummets.
  2. Protect it. Invest in a screen protector and case, which can lessen the hard impact on a hard surface.
  3. Phone manufacturers, including Motorola, are increasingly shipping phones with shatterproof technology. Motorola’s Droid Turbo 2 introduced the company’s new ShatterShield technology in 2015.

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