My neighbor's marble has a few dents from heavy pans dropping; however, the real problem is water stains around the sink. No chips. If your water has a high mineral content, then you need to be vigilant about wiping up the water.
BTW she has no problem with splatter at the stove area.
The marble is honed.

Bump

I'd love to hear more from experienced marble owners as well.

My sink is a 30" ss undermount. I had wanted 0 reveal but the fabricator did a 1/8-inch positive, which means I have a tiny amount of marble inside the sink. DH dinged it right away and it's a constant issue.

They did it because this was the second sink -- the first was off-square and defective and they were worried about having it look bad.

If I had it to do over, I'd buy a different sink brand (though I wouldn't give up the 30" 10-inches deep) and go for something like the Kohler 8 degree sink or the Stages which is beveled and allows the stone to be set back. (Those are expensive but perhaps someone has copied the style, which makes a lot of sense to me).

So if you bump, it's the inside edge of the very tough ss not the marble. This is also an issue for soapstone.

Different marbles have different hardnesses (?) ... you know what I mean: some chip more easily than others. If you can afford the higher priced ones, I would go and get samples of those that appeal to you, take them home and test them out.

For example, we have a Vermont White Quartzite (which is not really marble looks like it) in the bathroom, and it has no chips or dings at all. It's really hard. When I was shopping for that slab I also took a sample of some other true marble home (I can't recall the name), thinking it was quartzite, and it was also surprisingly hard.

The honed Carrara I have in my kitchen is pretty soft. It has many small white "spots" where it has been dinged by something hard. I'm always cringing when DH or teenage DD are washing pots and pans in the undermount sink or unloading the top shelf of the dishwasher. They're always banging heavy stuff on the edges. However -knock on wood!- so far we don't have any actual chips... just the white ding marks. OK, I just went to check again... if I run my finger along the underneath edge of the counter over the dishwasher, I can feel some very small chips there. But I never noticed then before...

I don't have any water spot issues... but my marble is well-sealed with Porous Plus. And I don't think our water is terribly minerally, either.

The little white marks don't bother me. Like the etching, they're part of having marble in a working kitchen, I feel.

Here is a picture of my prep sink during construction. My main sink is installed the same way. Because of the reveal of my sink, if I clank...it hits the sink not the marble. No chips. No stains. No problems. I have a lot of mineral deposits in our well water. just gotta get in the habit of wiping down the excess water if it matters to you. Hope this helps.