Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5 hopes to protect your phone from longer drops
Corning hopes to make that scenario a thing of the past with its recently-announced Gorilla Glass 5. The new toughened glass cover is touted to survive about 80% of the time when dropped face-down from 1.6 meters onto rough surfaces.
Gorilla Glass 4 already had impressive shatter-proofing specifications. Apple used the glass in previous iPhones but reports say the company switched with the iPhone 6S, though neither Corning or Apple will confirm. (Butterfingers, anyone?) The 1.6-meter target for Gorilla Glass 5 isn’t an arbitrary figure, either.
Internal research done by Corning showed that 85 percent of smartphone owners have dropped their phones at least once in the past year, and that two-thirds of those drops happening from waist height to shoulder height.
We should know more about Gorilla Glass 5 in a few months, and Corning hopes to add to the 4.5 billion devices now using their technology.
Not only will Gorilla Glass protect better from drops, but Corning also claims it should better protect against “sharp contact damage”.
Older versions of Gorilla Glass.
Corning says that Gorilla Glass 5 is now commercially available and is expected to begin appearing on devices from “leading global brands” later in 2016. The fifth iteration of Gorilla Glass, however, promises to offer more protection than ever before. Corning is quick to point out that much depends on how manufacturers design their devices and the thickness of the glass they end up using. So, there’s a decent chance it will be ready just in time for all of the fall hardware events.