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Sapphire’s Strength

We got a demo of sapphire at MWC in 2013 and it was impressive. It’s the second hardest material in the world after diamond and the fact that it’s very hard to scratch means that it’s much less likely to break than competitors like Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail. GTAT claims that it’s around three times stronger, but it’s the scratch resistance that really matters.

A few months after we got that sapphire demo, Corning dismissed sapphire screens and began to point out potential problems with its manufacture, posting an article that claimed “sapphire not seen as major threat” and showing a video test that highlighted the superiority of Gorilla Glass in terms of handling pressure.

We should note that most smartphone screens are not broken by applied force like this. They get weakened by scratches and fractures and then break or shatter when dropped. Look at the scratch resistance of sapphire in this Aero-Gear video.

Corning will argue that sapphire may be more scratch resistant, but it’s also more likely to shatter when dropped. Sapphire is harder, not necessarily stronger. The counter to that argument is that sapphire is much less likely to get scratched and while a perfect Gorilla Glass 3 screen might survive a fall more often than sapphire, a scratched one definitely won’t, and it’s much more likely to pick up scratches. There’s obviously no consensus on which is less likely to break in the real world.


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