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Gorilla Glass vs Sapphire: Corning challenges strength claims of alternative phone cover
013 days
by J
Making sure that your mobile device is well-protected — whether it is against excess data charges or cellphone theft — is of utmost importance these days. Protection against scratches to the screen in particular is one of the most pressing issues for smartphone and tablet owners, and an entire industry is now dedicated to serving this very important need. Currently, Corning leads the industry with its world-famous Gorilla Glass screens. But makers of sapphire screens — a promising alternative — might soon rise to dethrone it. Is it ready for the challenge?
As it turns out, Corning is not only ready to face the oncoming sapphire-gilded wave of the future, but it is also prepared to shoot down claims that sapphire could someday replace its Gorilla Glass screens. It recently ran tests of its toughest Gorilla Glass 3 material and compared it with its own lab-grown sapphire sheets. In the end, it concluded that sapphire is just a little more scratch-resistant but still just as prone to damage and breaking.
In a statement that was first released to CNET, Corning’s senior vice president and operations chief of staff Jeff Evenson said that samples of their in-house and lab-grown sapphire could not best Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 in the classic tumble test, where devices are spun for 45 minutes to see how it fares against scratches. He also called sapphire “brittle,” and noted that it could be dangerous to users if handled right after breaking. Corning and Evenson are just not very big fans of sapphire, apparently.
In other words, what Corning is saying is that sapphire may not be the best material to use for next-generation smartphone displays, which are only bound to get bigger and more feature-rich as technology progresses. Also, if you’re thinking of potential sources of workable sapphire display covers in the future, you can count them out. Corning says that it doesn’t plan on using sapphire alternatives in lieu of Gorilla Glass any time soon.
It’s important that you choose a phone or a tablet that you know won’t break very easily after being knocked around and scratched a few times. But it’s also important to remember that pretty much anything will break if the drop-off point is high enough, or if the force of impact is strong enough. Perhaps the best piece of advice you can take from all of this is just don’t ever, ever drop your tablet or phone.
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Look out Gorilla Glass, next gen devices might feature sapphire displays
061 days
by J
Have you ever dropped your smartphone or tablet? Not a pleasant experience, I know. As always, the relentless pursuit of innovation is yielding achievements and developments in areas not previously thought possible. Science once confined to the limits of military and security applications has been leaping over to the cutthroat mobile device market for some time now.
When it comes to protecting the displays of our precious devices, Corning’s Gorilla Glass is currently state of the art. Here’s a demo we’ve seen at MWC in February.
Sapphire could be the next wonder material
Sapphire itself is a special material. With a melting point of 2,030C, it remains virtually impervious to pretty much everything that’s thrown at it. As the second hardest material next to diamond, it is significantly more abundant and less expensive, making it perfect for our beloved mobile devices. What’s more is that it has long enjoyed success in a variety of applications – namely bulletproofing the cars of some very special people, and on Rolex watches to ensure that the face stays scratch free throughout years of use. And there’s many more.
Extremetech GT Advanced Technologies sapphire glass prototypes. Can you spot the one for the iPhone 5 on the far left?
The sum of it is that sapphire is ten times more scratch resistant than normal glass, and, while we don’t have real world tests of how it will stack up next to Corning’s famous Gorilla Glass, we’d have to say that it’s likely to yield some drastic improvements for people that tend to drop their devices more than they ought to.
Naturally, it’s still a material that has a crystalline structure, and is therefore still capable of shattering or cracking, but the fact remains, it is significantly harder and stronger than the materials used in our smartphone displays today. While it remains roughly ten times as expensive as its immediate competitor – Gorilla Glass, economies of scale in the furiously competitive mobile device economy will result in it becoming much cheaper in a relatively short period of time. According to the talented nerds at ExtremeTech:
”Sapphire glass is around three times the strength and scratch resistance of Corning’s Gorilla Glass, [making] an almost perfect smartphone screen. There’s one caveat: according to a market analyst, a sheet of Gorilla Glass costs around , while the same piece of sapphire glass would cost . Thanks to increasing competition, though, the cost of sapphire glass is dropping. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a high-end smartphone (such as the iPhone) use a sapphire screen in the next few years.”
If you’ve taken the time to see our drop tests, you’ll know that most devices don’t hold up very well against concrete. Assuming similar advancements are made in other materials, we one day could all own devices that are incredibly hard to smash, shatter, and break.
Is this a welcome advancement? Have you ever shattered or broken your devices display?
The post Look out Gorilla Glass, next gen devices might feature sapphire displays appeared first on Android Authority.
