Corning has been making tough, damage-resistant display for smartphones for years. But the company says its new Gorilla Glass Victus 2 glass is the toughest yet.
Not only has it been tested to survive a fall from heights of two meters (6.6 feet) onto asphalt, but for the first time the company says the glass shouldn’t break when dropped onto concrete from heights up to one meter (3.3 feet). At the same time, the company says the new glass does that without sacrificing scratch resistance.
While Corning says competing solutions are known to break when dropped on concrete from half a meter or less, I suspect that the improvement to one meter is going to be of limited value.
Basically it means that for most people, if a phone falls directly out or your pocket and onto a sidewalk, you might be okay. But if you’re actually holding the phone higher than waist-height, you’d best hope it doesn’t land screen-first.
Of course you could always just put the phone in a bumper case or apply a screen protector for added protection. But that’s not always a cure-all either.
Anyway, I’m certainly not going to complain about technology that could make next-gen phone screens a little tougher to break. That’s especially true since, as Corning notes, smartphone screens are generally larger today than they were a few years ago, while phones are a little heavier. And both of those things can put more stress on cover glass, which means that if Corning and other glass makers weren’t putting out new and improved products, next-gen phones would likely have screens that are more likely to shatter than their predecessors, not less.
Every previous Gorilla Glass has shattered or cracked when dropped, so my hopes are low.