HTC on Nexus One cracked screen: "They don't go in pockets"

Last month, we shared the sad story of how our brand-new Google Nexus One went from Crave fave to purple nurple, with a cracked screen that scarred its beautiful AMOLED screen forever.

We took our Nexus One to HTC support -- under encouragement from Google -- and it promised to investigate fully. Now the results are in, and HTC tells us it couldn't find anything that could have caused a crack while the phone wasn't being handled.

"We're as mystified as you are," said a representative from HTC technical support.

HTC said that broken screens are quite common, but it had never heard of a screen cracking while quietly sitting on a desk. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera trained on the phone when it happened, so we can't say for sure that it wasn't damaged by a low-flying bird or one of our many inter-office enemies.

"Putting a phone in a tight pair of jeans and sitting down would usually cause the kind of damage," suggested our support guy. He agreed that it's possible that a small crack could spread over time, like a ding in a car window.

HTC support told us that a common cause of cracked screens is "putting it in handbags and getting knocked around by keys, because it's not in the pouch." The Nexus One comes with a neoprene case included in the box.

HTC told us that the cost for repairing a cracked screen like ours would be around £180, including parts, labour, shipping and VAT.

If you've got the same problem, our top tip is to think hard about how it got broken -- within the bounds of truthiness, of course. HTC support says it will ask you whether you've carried the phone in a pocket or kept it out of its case.

Despite Google bragging about testing the Nexus One with some aggressive poking and dropping, as seen in recent behind-the-scenes video, we got the message that this phone is too high-strung to survive in common phone environments. "People sometimes forget that they don't go in pockets," said HTC.

We don't remember reading that warning on the box, but we've got a new Nexus One (courtesy of HTC) and we won't be coddling it -- we treat all our mobile phones equally. Stay tuned to find out if this one lasts longer in our dangerous trousers.