We dropped them face first on a hard floor. We dropped a block of wood on their screens and finally smacked one with a hammer.

Along with a couple of metro Atlanta consumers, I was invited to test the resilience of new and recent models of the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and other brands. The session was organized by Protect Your Bubble, an Atlanta-based provider of protection plans for electronic devices.

The durability of smartphones will become even more crucial as we use them for increasingly important tasks.

It's harder than I thought to kill these things (which Protect Your Bubble and its PR firm supplied). Though screens cracked or shattered, the devices kept working through multiple bashings. Even after I took a hammer to the screen of a Galaxy S4. Even after I grabbed nails and jabbed them down on the screen.

But the smartphones we tested eventually did give out.

For video of what eventually stopped one and more on our love/hate relationship with smartphones, check out the latest Unofficial Business column on myAJC.com.