I'd argue that is worth the money if you're going to be using a phone every single day of their life. People will drop a few hundred on fancy shoes and wear them once a month, but they treat phones as cheap commodities.
Agreed, but its more the fact that you get a lot more peace of mind tossing around, and otherwise treating without too much care, a cheaper device. Risk of drops, theft, forgetting etc. are pretty high for something that I use every day. But then I'm a broke PhD student, so perhaps my views will change one day.
