Phone screens are expensive and a pain to replace but you may not have to worry about busting your screen soon. Corning, the folks behind Gorilla Glass, will soon be releasing the fifth iteration of its phone-focused glass.
Corning claims Gorilla Glass 5 will survive a 1.6 meter (5.25 feet) drop onto a rough surface, like concrete, 80% of the time. However, Corning's tests were conducted in a lab where phones were dropped face down. It'll be interesting to see how well Gorilla Glass 5 holds up to corner drops.
"With many real-world drops occurring from between waist and shoulder height, we knew improving drop performance would be an important and necessary advancement," said Gorilla Glass vice president and general manager John Bayne in a release.
According to a global research conducted by Corning, over 85% of smartphone owners have dropped their phones at least once in the last year. Over 60% of those drops occurred between waist and shoulder height, which is where the 1.6 meter drop height comes from.
Corning's chemically strengthened glass also has to offer exceptional clarity and touch responsiveness, making engineering a tough smartphone glass quite a challenge. 3D glass, like the curved display found on the iPhone 6s and OnePlus 3, will be more prone to cracking as well, as the rounded edges expose more of the screen.
Gorilla Glass 5 is now in production, and we should be seeing them on new devices launching in the fall. We expect to see it on the Samsung Galaxy S8 next year, and maybe even on the new Google Nexus phones.
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