Corning on Thursday announced a new version of its widely used Gorilla Glass cover glass that is said to significantly improve both scratch and drop performance in mobile devices. We could see it debut on new devices from Samsung as early as next month.
Rather than taking the tried and true approach of asking its scientists to focus on a single goal of making glass better against drops or scratches, Corning tasked them with doing both simultaneously. The result is Gorilla Glass Victus, an improved cover glass that will soon be featured in new devices from Samsung.
Corning said that in lab tests, Gorilla Glass Victus held up when dropped onto hard, rough surfaces at a height of up to two meters. For what it’s worth, the “competition” typically fails when dropped from less than 0.8 meters, the company noted.
In terms of scratch resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus is reportedly twice as good at succumbing to scratches as Corning’s own Gorilla Glass 6 and supposedly 4x better than competing aluminosilicate glasses.
Corning has a fascinating history as it relates to the tech industry. As the story goes, the company experimented with chemically strengthened glass way back in the 1960s but couldn’t find much of a commercial market for it so they stopped making it. Fast-forward to the mid-2000s when Apple was developing the first iPhone. CEO Steve Jobs desired a strong glass to protect the phone’s display and was put in touch with Corning. Months later, Gorilla Glass made its debut.
