The new Samsung Galaxy Note7 is the first smartphones in the world to sport Corning’s new standard of screen protection — Gorilla Glass 5. However, JerryRigEverything — a popular YouTuber that specialises in smartphone durability tests — discovered that this new standard of glass isn’t particularly scratch resistant.
In fact, he says that it’s just one step above plastic on the Mohs hardness scale.
As you can see from the video, the screen started scratching from the pick that was only a level 3 on the Mohs hardness scale, while the S7 edge didn’t start scratching until the level 6 pick was introduced.
Now before you start flipping out about how vulnerable the Note7 is to scratches, despite being fitted with the latest Gorilla Glass 5, keep in mind that Corning designed their latest glass to be more shatter resistant than Gorilla Glass 4. Shatter resistance often requires the panel to be a little softer so that the material is less brittle and more flexible during an impact.
So, while Gorilla Glass 4 may be more scratch resistant due to the harder tempered glass, it’s also more brittle which is more prone to cracking and shattering when dropped.
Therefore, the idea with Gorilla Glass 5, as it would seem, is to make it a little softer so that it is less brittle, but in turn, sacrifices some scratch resistance. This is sort of like Motorola’s X Force and its shatterproof plastic screen.
Did Samsung make the right choice with this? Well, at the end of the day it’s down to the end user, so you tell me. Would you have preferred a more scratch-resistant screen that could be more prone to shattering or a less scratch-resistant screen that isn’t?
For me, it would choose the latter because I’d just get a tempered glass screen protector (or any cheap screen protector) and I’d have the best of both worlds.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments below.
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