Your next smartphone will be a lot harder to scratch

Enlarge / The new generation of Gorilla Glass promises double the scratch resistance of 2018’s Gorilla Glass 6. (credit: Corning)

It takes about two years for Corning to develop each new generation of Gorilla Glass, the resilient material that graces a critical mass of smartphones. That process has for several update cycles focused on protecting screens against drops, fending off shatters and cracks by boosting what’s known as compressive strength. The newly announced Gorilla Glass Victus, though, gives equal weight to preventing scratches. That’s harder than it sounds and more useful than you’d think.

It’s not that Gorilla Glass has dismissed scratches entirely. But the last time Corning prioritized it as a threat was in Gorilla Glass 3, which came out all of seven years ago. Since then, smartphones have gotten much better about bouncing back from sidewalk run-ins, but handle an inadvertent key dig about the same as they did when the iPhone 5S came out. (Corning still provides glass for the iPhone, but a custom formulation distinct from the Gorilla Glass line.) Enter Victus, which promises double the scratch resistance of 2018’s Gorilla Glass 6. It performs better in a drop test, too, surviving a 2-meter fall compared to its predecessor’s 1.6m durability.

Scratch that itch

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