Cell phones take a lot of punishment. They get left outside, put through the laundry, dropped in toilets or puddles, and just plain dropped. 
After having a cell phone for two years (exactly as long as she's been a teenager) my daughter had gone through two phones and was jonesing for an upgrade. I don't think her phone had ever been exposed to water, but it sure did get dropped. A lot.
"I don't drop my phone that much," she'd protest as it slipped out of her hands yet again. Probably due to whatever electronic state resembles an eternal concussion, her phone just wasn't working right. Sometimes it wouldn't turn on; other times, she'd get nothing but a white screen; still others, certain keys wouldn't work. You just never knew.
Our trip to the cell-phone store, just after her birthday, yielded new phones for her as well as for her brother and me. We all got the same phones, but we added crash-resistant cases in different colors so we wouldn't mix them up. When the salesman saw the condition of her old phone, he took her case out of the package right then and there, and showed her how to assemble it. Too bad that case isn't made of Kevlar, because my daughter is surely going to test its protective abilities.
My old phone, on the other hand, is twice the age of hers, but there's not a scratch on it. It's like that vintage car that was only driven by the little old lady--to church. On Sundays, in nice weather.
COUPON TIME
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