Gorilla Glass 5 might not make it to your new smartphone anytime soon, but if you are a total klutz you will want to pay attention. The new glass technology will survive drops 80% of the time when dropped face-down from 1.6 meters onto rough surfaces, far outperforming Gorilla Glass 4 which only will survive a drop from a meter high.
Internal research done by Corning showed that 85% 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. So while previous versions of the Glass may have been strong, it wasn’t necessarily as durable if you dropped your phone while pulling it from your pocket or while taking a photo. And rough surfaces are particularly brutal for delicate smartphones, so much of Corning’s research and development of the new glass involved drops on rough surfaces.
Corning said no phones are employing the new glass technology right now, but within a few months we should start seeing it in a few flagship models.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
