You may have the best smartphone out there but no matter how fast it is, it will likely not survive a close encounter with a rock, for example. Unfortunately the truth is that smartphones are devices prone to breaking and something has to be done. While we will likely not see an unbreakable smartphone ever, we are getting close to this point with the announcement of the newest and latest protection – Corning’s all-new Gorilla Glass 4 cover glass.
Every revision of Gorilla Glass targets an issue that people face with their smartphone displays on a daily basis. While Gorilla Glass 3 offered “native damage resistance” against daily threats such as car keys, Gorilla Glass 4 will focus on another unfortunate event – drops. Corning says it has examined hundreds of devices with broken screens during the development of Gorilla Glass 4 and has reached a conclusion – displays break most often when they hit a rough surface such as concrete. While this is logical Corning looked closer at the situation and worked on it – the engineers of the company created new drop tests that used 180-grit sandpaper to simulate rough surfaces. Then they dropped Gorilla Glass 4 and other competitive protective glasses from a height of about 1 meter (3.3 feet). Gorilla Glass 4 survived sharp drop impacts “up to” 80 per cent of the time and demonstrated “up to” two times improvement over Gorilla Glass 3 and other hardened aluminosilicate glasses.
As you can see Gorilla Glass 4 is not perfect but it is a step in the right direction. In addition there are no downsides to Gorilla Glass 4’s improved damage resistance and the new glass offers the same optical clarity as older versions of Gorilla Glass, according to Corning. In a few words next generation smartphones will be a bit stronger than current ones, given they use Gorilla Glass 4.
The new protective glass is now shipped to Corning’s partners and the company expects to see the first devices protected with Gorilla Glass 4 this quarter.
Source: The Verge