Corning Announces Gorilla Glass 6 for Smartphones, Doubles Durability
by Anton Shilov on July 20, 2018 11:59 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Corning
- Gorilla Glass
Corning this week introduced its next-generation Gorilla Glass 6 cover glass for smartphones that promises to double durability when compared to its predecessor. The manufacturer says that the first devices that will use the protective glass will hit the market already in the coming months.
According to Corning, its Gorilla Glass 6 is an entirely new material “chemically strengthened to higher levels of compression” and designed to sustain multiple drops throughout a lifetime of a device. The substrate is designed for phones that use glass for more than 85% of their enclosure surface, so the Gorilla Glass 6 is claimed to be a better fit for handsets with displays featuring an 18:9 or 19:9 display aspect ratio than the company’s previous-gen Gorilla Glass 5.
According to a research by Toluna, which is cited by Corning, people drop their phones seven times a year and over 50% of these drops occur at one meter or below. The manufacturer claims that Gorilla Glass 6 survived 15 drops from 1 meter onto rough surfaces, which was two times better than results demonstrated by Gorilla Glass 5.
Corning says that its Gorilla Glass 6 has been evaluated by multiple customers and the latter are expected to use it in commercial products in the coming month. Although Corning does not disclose names of its clients, but logical candidates to use Gorilla Glass 6 are companies who launch their leading-edge products in the second half of the year.
Related Reading
Source: Corning
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
33 Comments
View All Comments
UpSpin - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
If you use a metallic back you can't use inductive charging, if you use a plastic back it does scratch easily.peevee - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
Or you can use a metal back with a plastic/glass insert where the inductive coil is (after all, the similar solution is used for cameras and fingerprint sensors).Lolimaster - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
Glass or metal (specially poshied) scratch as easily as plastic. High quality textured plastic does not. Before premium phones had a nice texture plastic cover.Easy for removable battery, dirt cheap to replace.
Valantar - Saturday, July 21, 2018 - link
But also ridiculously cheap-feeling. For a device you hold in your hand 99% of the time it's in use, in-hand feel matters. The Galaxy S3 was a decent phone for its time, but felt like a horrible, cheap toy. I hated it. My old HTC Hero had a good plastic back, but it still can't compare to the feeling of quality and comfort when handling my old HTC One (M7) or current OnePlus 3T. I abhor glass backs, though. They don't scratch as easily as plastic, and feel a bit better, but it just feels too inert for me. Not to mention that the slippery smooth surface is very uncomfortable to hold.PeachNCream - Sunday, July 22, 2018 - link
Your hands must be ultra-sensitive if the difference between how plastic and glass feels in them matters that much to you. That's completely understandable. I think people that regularly use a large quantity of hand lotion would end up with skin that would be more soft and discerning.MrSpadge - Monday, July 23, 2018 - link
You're talking about Peach'nCream lotion?thomasg - Monday, July 23, 2018 - link
I still use my old S3 LTE on a regular basis, mainly because of special software that runs on it.It is all around a great design, with a very well engineered skeleton and as far as modern glass-screen phones go, basically unbreakable.
I however would agree, that the plastic backside feels cheap. That's not an issue of plastic, it's an issue of the horrible glossy lacquer they applied for optical reasons.
I would argue that it can be done right, plain textured unpainted polymers are clearly the way to go.
Nokia proofed that with the N9 with a polycarbonate exoskeleton.
Even better though was a prototype predecessor of the Samsung Galaxy S1, the Samsung H1 (sold exclusively with Vodafone branding), which used the same magnesium endoskeleton (no doubt inspired by IBM Thinkpads) as the S1 through S3, with a polyamid shell with great texture.
BurntMyBacon - Monday, July 23, 2018 - link
When I hear high quality textured plastic, I think of my old Nokia Lumia 920. That felt pretty good in my hands. Not as good as the HTC One (M7), but better than most phones and without sacrificing wireless charge capability. Like you, I hated the feel of the Galaxy S3. I would not consider it representative of high quality textured plastic phones.piroroadkill - Tuesday, July 24, 2018 - link
To me, no phone I've ever held was better than the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD. That kevlar backing, with the smooth yet grippy feel, and fantastic texture... Glass is so overdone, and although I do admit to enjoying the aluminium of my old Desire HD, it's not all that practical to have a metal back for other reasons (Qi, NFC, phone signals).In fact, I just wish I could have my old RAZR MAXX HD again, but with newer innards. The form factor is absolutely perfect, and they still fit a huge battery in it.
StevoLincolnite - Sunday, July 22, 2018 - link
You can actually get self-healing polymers.But I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Note 8. Glass on the back and front is bullshit.
The phone does NOT look "stylish" because you have to hide the fragility inside of a rubber case... Which also traps in thermals, which means reduced SoC performance due to throttling on warm days.