Why Dropping You Android Tablet or Phone Is No As Bad As You Think | The Communication Blog

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Why Dropping You Android Tablet or Phone Is No As Bad As You Think

By Justin Bernard Jr.


Portable computing devices are common place. They're the new prerequisite to become connected. It's as widespread as having a television or calculator. Wait! Most phones include calculators. An element of this new common place for these devices will include a few mishaps. When I dropped my smart phone, before it hit the ground I was already pondering how much it would cost to replace. However, to my surprise the smartphone's glass screen had not been shattered. I suspected there had to be something unique about the material in the screen cover. As it turns out, it is made from a material referred to as Gorilla Glass created by Corning.

Today's cell phones, tablets and laptops take a beating. While being shuffled around during the course of our daily lives we require the screens to be crystal clear, resists scratches and not shatter from drops, bumps and mishaps. It should likewise be thin and light-weight. Corning's Gorilla Glass accomplishes this.

Gorilla Glass is made of an alkali-aluminosilicate. It is about thirty times harder than plasti, nearly as hard as sapphire crystals and not quite as hard as diamond, but very close. In addition it has a the ability to resist fracturing from an existing crack or chip.

Gorilla glass can be manufactured to be as thin as 0.5 mm. This makes it an excellent cover for touch screens. Because the material can be manufactured to be thin it can transfer the pressure or change in electrical current, with respect to the technology used by the smartphone developer.

On January 9, 2012 Corning announced Gorilla Glass 2. This next generation glass can be made 20% thinner and keep the same durability as its predecessor. Corning has made available on their website two videos demonstrating the strength and ruggedness of Gorilla Glass. In the first video a 4.0 Lbs ball is dropped from a height of approximately 3 feet onto a 1mm thick piece of glass. In the second video a baseball is launched at 50 MPH at an 0.8mm sheet of Gorilla Glass. Obviously in both cases the sheet of glass doesn't break. Amazing!

A number of the Android and Windows tablets are currently using Gorilla Glass. These include but are not limited to: Acer Iconia Tab, Iconia Smart, Asus Transformer Pad Infinity; Motorola Xoom, Xoom2 and XYBOARD and Samsung Galaxy Note.




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