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Smashed smartphones, totaled tablets: Gawk at readers' broken gear

Ouch! These busted gadgets have flown off car roofs and motorbikes, been sat and stepped on and wrestled with kids and dogs. Needless to say, they've seen better days.

Leslie Katz Former Culture Editor
Leslie Katz led a team that explored the intersection of tech and culture, plus all manner of awe-inspiring science, from space to AI and archaeology. When she's not smithing words, she's probably playing online word games, tending to her garden or referring to herself in the third person.
Credentials
  • Third place film critic, 2021 LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards
Leslie Katz

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Ouch. Nathan Sivewright

Sometimes gadgets have accidents. They suffer run-ins with trucks and lawn tractors. They get left on

roofs and taken for joyrides. They fall out of hands and pockets onto concrete. They get tossed across rooms by energetic toddlers and chomped by enthusiastic puppies. They get in the way of flying objects.

When we asked CNET readers to share photos of their busted gadgets and tell us how they wound up that way, we got the above stories, and many more -- lots of them, from around the world. Some truths are universal: whether a smartphone lives in the US, Canada, India or Hong Kong, it probably won't take well to being slammed onto the pavement.

As you'll see in the gallery below, some readers' busted phones, tablets and laptops are spectacularly shattered but still work. Others appear to have sustained only minor injuries but no longer function. A word of caution: you might want to keep your healthy gadgets away from these photos, as the shots could cause serious psychological harm.

Thank you readers, to all who shared your tales. We're sorry you have a broken device, but we're glad you have a sense of humor about it.

Busted! CNET readers show us their broken devices (pictures)

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