Just dropped my prime

[Tugdual]

(01-28-2014 12:08 AM)Han Wrote:  I dropped mine last week, actually -- from waist height onto asphalt (happened in the parking lot). There's a scratch on the plastic at the top of the calculator above the "HP" in "HP Prime Graphing Calculator." The case was on. Oddly, I just took a closer look and it appears that there are cracks toward the bottom left and right rounded "corners" of the calculator. I don't know if this was related to the drop from last week, but it appears that the cracks are almost symmetrical (left side vs right side appear to show the same hairline cracks).

Looks like the cracks were caused by the whole structure displacement further to the fall. Unfortunately this looks pretty bad…

Does anybody know if the Prime is designed with the same principles as mobile phones? When you open a mobile phone it is pretty obvious that by design it is made to fall, by avoiding hard joints such as solder by privileging spring contacts, flexible ribbon cables.
Other question I have in mind is related to the calculator dimensions. Being pretty big and thin, it seems a good candidate for twisting and bending. I wonder if the hard sliding case was not chosen instead of a soft clamshell to gain rigidity when the calculator is in a bag.