Undoubtedly, Corning’s Gorilla Glass franchise is the go-to solution for smartphone manufacturers, when it comes to screen protection. The coating has gotten so popular that it’s now more a standard than a feature. However, there are shortcomings in every product and Gorilla Glass is no different. While devices coated with Gorilla Glass are fairly resistant to scratches and the likes, they’re not nearly as shatter proof as users would’ve liked.
Gorilla Glass usually means that your phone’s screen is scratch proof up to an extent. But often, ignorance prevails and retailers/marketers get away with advertising Gorilla Glass as a shatter-proof solution. This leaves buyers dejected when they find out that their phone doesn’t even live after a short-ish fall (say a couple of feet), leaving the glass shattered. Corning is now attempting to address that very shortcoming with its latest iteration of Gorilla Glass, i.e., Gorilla Glass 4. It claims that this version of its toughened glass ‘will live 80% of the times with dropped from a meter above the ground’. This might not cover every use-case on the planet, but it sure as hell would save a tonne of smartphone screens from being broken each year. Corning also claims that Gorilla Glass 4 is up to twice as tougher than the competition.
Corning described the new process for Gorilla Glass 4 by saying that it “provides at least two times improved damage resistance over competitive aluminosilicate glass, as measured by retained strength after damage events, resulting in improved mechanical durability of the glass to in-field damage events, such as drops.”
Samples for this toughened version of its Gorilla Glass are already being sent out for feedback. This means that a proper, commercial launch shouldn’t be too far. I’ve a feeling we’re going to see a lot of devices use Gorilla Glass 4 at the CES next year, which is only a couple of months from now. Also, with a flagship cycle tending to a 6 month period from a yearly basis, it shouldn’t take manufacturers long to incorporate this new piece of tech in their products. Do you think there’s a dearth of competitors in this segment of tech resulting in slower progress than we’re capable of? Let us know in the comments section below.