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 $3, while the same piece
of sapphire glass would cost $30. 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?
