Corning unveils Gorilla Glass 5
Some smartphones can be expensive. When you spend a lot of money on a device, it can be quite the anxiety-creating affair. Whenever you pull it out of your pocket, you must worry about breaking it, and ultimately wasting many hundreds of dollars. This can be said about less expensive devices as well, depending on your economic situation, of course.
One of the most painful things to break or scratch on a smartphone is the screen, as it is how you interact with the pocket-computer. Luckily, Corning's line of Gorilla Glass can make these screens a bit more durable. Today, the company unveils the fifth iteration of its technology.
"The unique attributes of Gorilla Glass 5 build on the best-in-class performance of previous generations of Corning Gorilla Glass. Mobile devices are the primary tools consumers use to capture, view, create, send and consume digital content, and the cover glass is the interface for touching, typing and swiping that content. Consumers count on their cover glass to deliver damage resistance, optical clarity, touch sensitivity, and protection from drops", says Corning.
John Bayne, vice president and general manager, Corning Gorilla Glass shares, "with each successive generation of Corning Gorilla Glass, we have taken cover glass technology to new levels. Gorilla Glass 5 is no exception, extending Corning’s advantage in drop performance over competitive glasses“With many real-world drops occurring from between waist and shoulder height, we knew improving drop performance would be an important and necessary advancement".
OK, so lets talk details here. According to Corning, its Gorilla Glass 5 will survive a 5.25 foot drop about "80 percent of the time". This is not onto carpet, but face-first onto what the company says are "rough surfaces".
Pessimists will be quick to point out a 20 percent failure rate, but traditional glass would surely do far worse. Five feet is quite high, folks -- this is impressive.
The new version of Gorilla Glass is available immediately to manufacturers, meaning we could see it in actual devices later in 2016.
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