Corning has this week unveiled its seventh generation of Gorilla Glass, and with it promises to offer significantly improved drop and scratch protection for our smartphones.
Currently, Corning's best protection is offered by Gorilla Glass 6, but that's set to be replaced with Gorilla Glass Victus. Corning says its lab testing shows Victus is capable of withstanding drops of up to two meters without signs of damage. Gorilla Glass 6 is rated at 1.6 meters. For scratch resistance, Corning claims a 2x improvement over Gorilla Glass 6 and has a typical scratch threshold of 7-10 Newtons.
John Bayne, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile Consumer Electronics at Corning, said, "Dropped phones can result in broken phones, but as we developed better glasses, phones survived more drops, but also showed more visible scratches, which can impact the usability of a device ... Instead of our historic approach of asking our technologists to focus on a single goal – making the glass better for either drop or scratch, we asked them to focus on improving both drop and scratch, and they delivered with Gorilla Glass Victus."
With smartphones becoming more expensive, displays less prone to scratches or cracks will be very welcome. Corning has confirmed Samsung will be using its new glass first "in the near future." Expect it to be marketed heavily as a feature in the first devices that use it, and for more than a few Victus device drop test videos to appear on YouTube.
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