Last weekend, I went to a jazz night at the local university’s botanical garden. Between the eager play of the usual standards and a glacially-paced raffle, my girlfriend managed to drop her Galaxy S7 Edge onto the asphalt. Her phone, devoid of any protection, suffered a nasty crack in the screen that ran between the home button and the left side.
That’s exactly the sort of accident that Corning are hoping to prevent with their latest version of Gorilla Glass, the chemically strengthened glass that’s used by Samsung, Apple and so many other fragile-screened consumer electronics. Let’s take a look at what’s to come.
Gorilla Glass 5
The new version is called Gorilla Glass 5, and it’s designed expressly to better resist falls from significant heights. Corning claim that your phone will survive 80% of the time if it’s dropped from 1.6 metres — about head height for some, shoulder height for others — onto a rough surface. Gorilla Glass 4 was only able to reliably survive drops from about a metre, so this is a big improvement.
Of course, this comes with caveats; the tests used 0.6mm glass, and some manufacturers use 0.4mm glass. The survivability also varies based on other factors, like the design of the phone surrounding the screen, and how far the glass sits above the frame. The Verge have an interesting article on the subject, if you’re interested.
How to protect your screen
Of course, Gorilla Glass 5 won’t help your Galaxy S7, S7 Edge or any other phone that’s been released so far — although we do expect it to appear in the Note 7.
Thankfully, there are things you can do to add a bit of protection, without changing the look and feel of your phone (unless you want to). Let’s take a look.
Of course, one answer to ‘how do I protect my screen’ is obvious: get a screen protector! These thin cuts of plastic or tempered glass go above the glass of your screen, adding an extra barrier against scratches and impacts. Glass screen protectors are better at taking a potentially screen-shattering blow than plastic options, which makes them worth their higher price. (They’re also easier to install and last longer than plastic screen protectors).
Another option is to pick up a case, which adds protection for your whole phone — including the screen. If you don’t want to change the look of your phone, you can pick up a clear case that still allows your phone’s design and colour to be seen. If you’re not bothered about changing your phone’s looks (or you want to upgrade to something that looks better), then there are many more tough cases on the market that’ll do the job. Go to our main page by clicking the button below, type in your phone and see what’s available.
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Wrapping up
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