Breaking my phone’s screen a couple years ago was literally one of my worst nightmares.
I was careful with my phone, so it’d never happen to me, right?
Famous last words.
A new phone, despite my insurance, cost the same as I had paid to start with: $200. This may not be a huge outlay in cash, but it also took a couple business days, plus a weekend, for a new one to arrive. In the meantime, my phone was almost impossible to use (thankfully it still was usable), because I still needed it in day-to-day business.
Add in my more recent and frequent travels, and a lack of GPS, phone and portable device put me in a real bind in many places. Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 aims to change this incredibly stressful problem.
We usually associate Corning Incorporated with baking dishes, but they actually have a division dedicated to creating cover glass for phones, tablets, laptops and other devices that is incredibly durable—and they say their latest product, Gorilla Glass 4, dramatically improves protection against drops. In lab tests, Gorilla Glass 4 survived up to 80% of the time when dropped from three feet high, and was up to 2x tougher than competitive glass designs.
I can’t confirm that my current device has it, though you can check if your device has Gorilla Glass 4. Amazingly, soda lime glass, which is used in windows, is used in more than 40% of the smartphones in China.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can drop your device endlessly and expect unlimited durability; when I met a few of the engineers behind Gorilla Glass 4 at a recent conference, they stressed that it will weaken over time given repeated drops. However, Gorilla Glass 4 better protects against damage caused by sharp contact such as drops on concrete or asphalt.
I was really wowed by the personal demonstration I had received, and below is a video mirroring the stress tests Corning puts their product through:
If I’m lucky I’ll never experience another broken phone—but until then, I’m going to make sure my devices all have Gorilla Glass 4!
I received compensation in exchange for writing this review. Although this post is sponsored, all opinions are my own.
