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

We asked readers of CNET's Crave to show us their busted devices and tell us how they got that way. Here are just some of those stories.

In a battle between iPhone and lawn tractor, the tractor will almost always win. Randy Bell discovered this the hard way while mowing near his Chicago-area home.

"I've always left my phone in the cup holder near the seat," he says. "I decided to check emails as I began to mow my lawn...my phone was gone!"

On inspecting the path he'd mowed, Bell found what was left of his trusty device. The remains are pictured here.

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You could say Mark Burrows' HTC DNA smartphone was the victim of chivalry.

Leaving a San Diego 7-Eleven with his arms full of purchases, Burrows had already let go of the door when a woman approached. "Quickly, I reached back to open the door for the lady," he says.  "That's when the phone slipped from my hand."

It landed on edge, on its top right corner, producing this effect. Burrows' contract wasn't up at the time, and the phone still worked, so he used it for a few more weeks while deciding which device to get next.

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Working at Best Buy Mobile, Jessica Schrader of Nebraska constantly sees devices that have met tragic ends. For instance: this Motorola Razr.

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Behold Nathan Sivewright's HTC Sensation XL, which is far less sensational after being run over by an off-road truck.

"No, it does not work either," the Adelaide, Australia, resident says. "However, I recall that it did make a short screeching sound immediately after being run over."

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Ross Burke of Manassas, Va., shared this photo of his partner Janet's iPad 2, which she dropped on the floor almost two years ago. "She hasn't had the money to repair or replace it," Burke says, "but at least it's still chugging along...sort of."

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"I went to put my phone in my pocket. Missed my pocket," Matt Trovato of Ontario, Canada, reports of his iPhone 5S.

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After receiving his new Motorola Nexus 6 at his London office last week, Amarjeet Singh took his new electronic friend to a GoKarting event.

"Unfortunately, the phone slipped from my hand as I was in the car park (4 feet from ground)," he reports, adding that while the outer screen sustained damage, the phone still works perfectly.

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You have to look closely to spot the crack in this Amazon Kindle (it's just above the keyboard, to the left). It got there after Dawn McCaleb of Ocean City, Md., accidentally left her e-reader on the roof of her car after a day at the beach and then drove away. Down the road a ways, she remembered her mistake and went back to retrieve the device from the street.

"It no longer works and I never replaced it," McCaleb says. "I don't know why I still have it. I'm hoping, perhaps, that it will resuscitate itself and come back to me."

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Here's another story of a gadget left on the roof of a car, this one from Jordan Martinetti of Fargo, N.D.

He put his iPhone 5S atop his girlfriend's car while he changed the brake pads and rotors, planning to retrieve the device before he drove the vehicle. But when he took the car around the block for a test-drive, the phone got an  unexpected joyride.

"To my surprise, it works perfectly fine," Martinetti says.

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George Sanchez of Aloha, Ore., who's never been fond of screen protectors or cases, has dropped his HTC One S numerous times, including twice while  building this deck. After the latest drop, Sanchez figured the phone would stop working. It didn't.

"It's still running," he reports. "Only had to add screen protector so I stop cutting myself from the first fall."

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Gretchen De Silva of Bethesda, Md., says none of the three iPhone she's owned have made it to upgrade time without a cracked screen. This one got dropped during a jog, and though De Silva's had to cover some of it with tape to avoid getting cut, the phone still works.

"Can you read the screen? Kind of," she says. "You get used to it!"

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Calvin Ing, a student who lives near Toronto, closed his Asus ROG G750 laptop, forgetting that his headphone adapter still sat on top of the keyboard. Then he put the weight of a binder and textbook on top of the machine -- something like 8 pounds in all, he estimates.

"At the end of class I noticed my screen was wedged open, and opened the notebook to check why, only for the laptop to turn on, revealing the destroyed screen," he says. "My heart sank as finals were coming up, and my AutoCAD assignment was due the next day."

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Puppies love to chew on things, even tablets apparently.

Last year, after working his way through power cords, rocks, slippers, headphones and remote controls, Dale Mickel's 5-month-old labradoodle, Obi, set his sights on Mickel's Nexus 7.

"He decided that my tablet was going to be his next great chew toy. Destroyed the case. Cracked the glass and broke the digitizer," says Mickel, of Tacoma, Wash. "It still powers up and kind of works, but I need to order the parts and fix it."

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Nathan Leshchinsky's iPhone 4S still works after  it landed face-first on a hardwood floor.

The accident happened at home near Philadelphia when Leshchinsky stepped back without seeing his dog right behind him. The dog yelped, causing Leshchinsky to drop his device.

"My contract renewal is at the end of January, and I didn't want to spend the money to get a new one, so I am gonna deal with it till then," he says.

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This is Ryan Gannon's new iPhone 6. "I got it the Monday before Thanksgiving. By Thanksgiving morning it was broken," the San Diego resident says.

Gannon's roommate cautioned him not to take his new device out without a case. He did anyway. "I dropped it on a short walk to my house while I was fumbling around with my gate lock," Gannon says. "The phone without a case will literally slip through your fingers."

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Pooja Gautam's Samsung Galaxy S3 fell from a height of about 3 feet onto his foot and then bounced onto the sidewalk. The phone sustained a few cracks, and Gautam, a doctor, diagnosed himself with an "erythematous toe."

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Kevin Vernon's Kindle HD was already cracked when he bought it on eBay for $35. "Works fine," says the Indianapolis resident. "Touch screen has some occasional minor issues with location of touch, but very live-with-able, for the cost."

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Sometimes damage gets progressive. Clovis Perreault dropped this iPad Mini in the garage and it hit the ground face down with its cover open.

"At first, it was just slightly cracked and didn't affect the display at all," Perreault says, "but it got worse over time."

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Here's another device, Chegondi Dutta's HTC Sensation XE, that did OK immediately following a mishap but continued to crack further over time.

The damage happened during a motorbike accident in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where Dutta is studying  engineering and communication.

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Dion Houghton's nearly 2-year-old daughter can take credit for this one.

"The kaleidoscopic masterpiece that she managed to create during one of her 'let's see how far I can throw this' moments certainly makes up for any health and safety worries caused by the shattered glass," Houghton writes from Hong Kong.

Most of the LG G2's screen still works, "but having to constantly turn the device to avoid the dead part of the screen is wearing a bit thin," Houghton says.

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Lewis Lott, who's in the military and stationed at Fort Bliss in the southwestern US, had to climb atop a radar system but didn't have his flashlight. So he used his iPhone to light the way. As this photo demonstrates, it took a tumble.

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Kyle Hartz's iPhone 5 has been going strong since it slipped off his car's roof and got run over in August.

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Deborah Conway of Spokane, Wash., had her Nexus 9 tablet for only a week before it got knocked off a counter and dropped 3 feet onto a vinyl-covered cement floor. Fortunately, it still works.

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KJ Smith of Waco, Texas, was using his iPhone 5S to film sl0-mo karate stunts with his brother when another Apple gadget got caught in the line of fire.

"We had a *fake* gun and he was trying to kick it out of my hand," Smith recalls. "Bad idea. It flew across the room, broke a glass cup and cracked the display on my iMac... #oops."

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