Y'know, cheap plastic screens, really weak paint, bad buttons, stuff like that. Anything I should look out for? Also, how do I prevent (or slow (or just plain avoid)) these effects?
:furawatchi: If you don't want scratches on your screen's then you can cut screen protectors to size, a lot of people do this with their tamas. If your screen already has scratches in you can use displex to sort it out, I personally never have because I'm not really too bothered.
:furawatchi: For the paint you can use covers/pouches to protect them, this also protects the actual shell from scratches. I really like using the little Alpacasso pouches for my connections.
:furawatchi: If you mean bad buttons as in unresponsive then you can sort that out by opening up the tamagotchi until you get to the front of the screen, then using rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip to wipe the little plate bit's and the actual buttons themselves then put it back together. That was a bad explanation so here's a video with a good explanation c:
As for other problems I don't know any, I think a few people had an issue with the ball and star on the connection antennas to fall off but I've never had that...