I’d rather have called this the “myths and misconceptions about Corning Incorporated and the Corning® Gorilla® Glass” that you should correct in your mind since I personally had a few of the facts wrong, just like you might have them in your mind right now.
As technology enters rural India, the name ‘Corning Gorilla Glass’ is not well known because Gorilla Glass for smartphones has only been known for a few years. But you should be shocked to know that the company has a history of over 160 years! Over a century and a half, and even more shocking that this is the company that made glass for Thomas Edison’s light bulb.
The following tidbits are all what I learned at the research labs (the experience of which, I’ll share very soon) or from the web, and the Q&A will make it easier for you to understand everything.
A bit about Corning’s initial history
Corning Incorporated was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton, in Somerville, Massachusetts, originally as the Bay State Glass Co. Interestingly, the company’s name and home changed twice after this, with the first one being Brooklyn Flint Glass Works when they shifted to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Later, it shifted to the city of Corning, New York in 1868 when Amory Houghton, Jr. (founder’s son) was leading the company.
What does Corning Incorporate make?
The things that have been made by Corning include Missile Domes and Radomes, Telescope Mirrors and Lens Blanks, Corning® Gorilla® Glass for mobile devices, Iris Glass for large screen TVs, Willow Glass for thinner displays for OLEDs and LCDs, Optical fiber for communications, glass for use in Genomics, Microbiology, Pharmaceutical Technologies, Bioprocessing, and Chemical processing, and ceramic substrates for emissions control.
How big is the use of Corning Gorilla Glass?
There are some competitor cover glass makers in the market, but the surprisingly huge number we see here is that Corning Gorilla Glass has been used on 4.5 billion devices. That’s right; about 4.5 billion devices around the world have used Corning Gorilla Glass, including the original Gorilla Glass to Gorilla Glass 4 that is being used right now.
It is well spread a fact that the Gorilla Glass 4 is quite strong. How strong is it?
No matter how hard you think about it, glass will ultimately break, but that depends on the type of glass and amount of stress it gets, to find out how much pressure breaks it. To see a comparison of Corning Gorilla Glass compared to soda lime glass and other competitive glasses, visit corninggorillaglass.com. Corning continuously innovates newer generations of Gorilla Glass with higher levels of damage and scratch resistance, and #GorillaGlass4 is Corning’s toughest cover glass yet, but here’s something you need to know.
Gorilla Glass 4 was tested to survive about 80% of the falls from a height of 1 meter onto rough surfaces. It is not that the glass will always survive a fall, but it still is much better than competitive cover glasses. The damage depends on the design of the device, the surface where the device is falling, and the surface that is directly getting the impact.
Do you mean to say that if I drop the phone right out of the box, it has a chance to break?
Blame your luck for that if it happens. If it is Gorilla Glass on the top of the phone’s display, you might see lesser chances of it getting damaged. The general science with any glass is that, with time, the glass can become scratched, and these become the points of fracture whenever excess stress is exerted on them at once, and that happens during a fall. For a general user, take a working woman for instance, there are goods in the purse that tend to put permanent stresses on the surface of the phone. Even the light-weight nail file that you use for your fingernails has an irregular surface that could cause damage to the screen. So, with time, the screen or its protection gets weaker.
Does the thickness of the glass make it tougher?
No, Corning continues to innovate newer generations of Gorilla Glass to deliver tough damage and scratch resistant glasses that can meet device manufacturers’ demands for thinner glass and thinner devices.
How trustworthy is Corning?
Well, if you are looking at the company only as a protective cover glass-maker, you might not know the history. They have been at it for 165 years and are known to even make glasses that are tough enough to make windows of space shuttles that enter space at the speed of thousands of km per hour.
Why should I still look at a phone having a Gorilla Glass protection when I am going to use a scratch guard or a Tempered glass anyway?
Clearly, if you are okay with spending an extra amount using a screen protector and replacing it frequently because of how poor they are with handling scratches, that’s your call. Here, it is important to know that if you have a normal glass on your phone with no protection and you place a screen protector, some hard blow on it could permanently damage the cover glass. But Corning Gorilla Glass better protects your device because of how well it handles scratches.
Do you have anything else to ask or know about Corning or Gorilla Glass? Do let me know through the comments.
