Hello Everyone,
I noticed many threads where members complain that their Gorilla glass got scratched and broke when it fell, so i decided to make a post about the issue and let people know what is Gorilla, Dragontrail, Tempered Glass & Sapphire glass and what to except and general misconceptions that people have about these glasses
Lets First get to know what is Gorilla Glass, Sapphire glass, Tempered Glass & Dragontrail glass
Gorilla Glass :
Gorilla glass is registered trademark of Corning Glass Company of USA, it’s a alkali-aluminosilicate sheet toughened glass, it’s a special type of glass which has following properties, its hard, thin, lightweight & scratch resistant, after steve jobs used gorilla glass on Iphone, gorilla glass became the choice of all high end device makers and used in laptops, mobiles, tablets and other portable devices
Gorilla glass have different versions, like Gorilla glass 2 & newer and better Gorilla glass 4, which is more shatter resistant the previous generation glasses
Also please note that its not the glass which is scratch resistant but it’s the “secret” coating these manufacturer make which gives the hardness along with the chemical process of making glass bonds stronger
Dragontrail:
Dragontrail is also a alkali aluminosilicate glass which is made by Asahi Glass company of Japan, Dragontrail is considered to be more resistant than gorilla glass 2 and suppose to resist scratch better, it can also support more weight upto 60kg. although in drop tests it does not compare well against the Gorilla glass. it can break more easily than GG3
Sapphire Glass:
Sapphire is not glass at all but it’s a crystalline material, sapphire glass is made of synthetic sapphire which are made in labs. Synthetic sapphire is generally made by applying incredibly high heat and pressure to aluminum oxide powder and getting blocks of synthetic spphire, these blocks are then cut and polished in screen sizes and this is what is called a sapphire glass
Sapphire is very hard and compared to gorilla or dragontrail glass but sapphire transmits 6% less light. Also its heavier than gorilla glass of same thickness.
Sapphire glass is nothing new, infact high quality watches have been using sapphire glass from a long time but the watch glass are usually 2 to 3 times thicker than the glass used on mobile devices. But all this has now changed, as companies have found to produce sapphire glass as screens. But sapphire are prone to shatters, they can shatter easily compared to Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail glass.
Tempered Glass:
Tempered glass screen protectors are essentially toughened glass, they are heat treated and chemically treated to make it stronger, it essentially is same as a GG or Dragontrail glass but made to protect devices. it contains different layers like silicon, PVC sheet between glass layers to give it impact resistance. tempered glass are essentially meant to give you the same glass feel of your device screen but to protect against minor scratches, drops. thing to note here is that many tempered glass vendors claim it to have hardness of 9, but those claims are mostly false. they same similar hardness as your normal GG
Hardness levels:
Now to understand what makes these glass resistant to scratches and so hard, we have to understand something called “Mohs scale of mineral hardness” in layman terms, this scale means, anything that has hardness less than the material will not scratch it. For example, quartz has hardness of 7 on Mohs scale, so a material likes copper will not be able to scratch quartz
Coppers Mohs scale of hardness is 3, while quartz is 7
(Please note that Corning values on their official website on the Vickers hardness scale, which is alternative to the Mohs scale)
Corning gorilla glass has a Mohs hardness of 6 for Gorilla glass 2 and its suppose to be 6.7 for newer Gorilla glass 3. Dragontrail glass has hardness of around 6.5 on mohs scale while sapphire glass has hardness of 8 ~ 9
Now that we know the basics, lets clear few things:
Gorilla glass, Dragontrail glass, even your Tempered glass and sapphire glass will all scratch, sapphire will be the hardest to scratch but will scratch none the less, so once you put them or have them dont expect your device to be impervious to damage. treated glass may resist scratches better but tend to shatter
What will damage your screen most is “Sand” sand contains quartz, which has more hardness than both Dragontrail and Gorilla glass, also anything like diamond, steel files, abrasion papers with high hardness, granite and many other materials will scratch your screen.
So if you live in sandy area or have sand or dust flying around as it is the case in our dusty country, use a screen guard of good quality to protect your screen. As sand has quartz in it and it will damage your screen.
Gorilla glass. tempered glass & dragontrail glass will break too, given the right circumstances, they are hard but the hardness also makes them brittle, and can break easily. but any expert will tell you the screen or glass breaking depends on the type of landing when your device falls. some devices can fall from 6ft high and still survive but some will fall just from 2ft and can have shattered glass. even corning and Asahi Corp. dont claim their glass to be break resistant or scratch resistant.
Never put pressure on screen when removing dust or sand, blow it away first and then use a soft cloth to clean your device by sweeping away the dust, rather than wiping it at first. if you are clumsy then use a tempered glass protector and good bumper case, they provide added protection and good bumber cases have been proven to protect your device.
remember, you Costly phone might cost you 300$ but screen replacement unit costs like 100$+ labour & tax which can be more than 50% of the device cost. so spening a bit of money you always go in good accessories to make your device more secure.
Happy Device user :)
