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For a number of years I had read how each generation of Gorrila Glass is 50% or something stronger, yet I was still experiencing broken phones. So I did a deep
by 323 5y ago
For a number of years I had read how each generation of Gorrila Glass is 50% or something stronger, yet I was still experiencing broken phones.
So I did a deep dive, long story short, when Gorilla Glass makes a stronger glass, the phone makers make the screen thinner, so we are back to square one.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoWhat's better? Thinner phones or stronger screens?
- christophilus 5y agoStronger screens.
- 8organicbits 5y agoScreens that are not cracked, whatever the needed strength and thickness may be.
- R0b0t1 5y agoThe very marginal increase in thinness is pointless. They should be going with unbreakable screens.
- rdtwo 5y agoCheaper
- GekkePrutser 5y agoDon't forget there's an incentive for manufacturers to make sure phones don't last forever..
- Grakel 5y agoSufficient thinness was reached like ten years ago. Imagine the battery life we could have.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoGive me a phone twice as thick as my iPhone and stuff it full of batteries and better antennas, and remove the camera bump. I will buy.
- Gigachad 5y agoThickness isn’t as much of an issue as weight is. I spent a while holding the 13 pro and 13 pro max and found the pro max to just be uncomfortably heavy.
- apatheticonion 5y agoFully agree with this sentiment. I already have a case on my phone that nearly doubles its thickness. Most phones have screen protectors which more than double the thickness of the screen glass - that said, screen protectors are cool in that they are disposable in the event of scratching. But I would much prefer a Pixel phone that's thicker if that means it has better battery life and reception. The Pixel 6a THIC.
- crossroadsguy 5y agoDamn it remove the camera and I’ll buy :)
- megablast 5y agoSo put a big case on it??
- astrange 5y agoYou can get that with a battery case. Complaining about phones getting thinner is a bit odd when iPhones haven’t gotten thinner in ~5 years.
- ezconnect 5y agoThey will not make it since it will be more expensive, reasoning there's more materials on it. Selling accessories is more profitable.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoI’ve ordered a Ulefone Power Armor 13. 6.8” display, 20.8mm thick, 492 grams, 13,200mAh battery. https://m.ulefone.com/power-armor-13.html?PageName=specs https://m.ulefone.com/power-armor-13.html?PageName=specs My iPhone 7 battery lasts about two hours of mixed use browsing / app use. Will get the battery replaced when the tank arrives, I’m just over Apples lack of options with regard to battery size at anything like a reasonable price.
- bgro 5y agoAh, so same as the battery situation. New battery tech or revised software that works more efficiently? Great, we can make the battery smaller. That's all customers care about-- a thinner phone that can go in a bulky phone case! I don't remember anybody ever complaining about the size of their phone. And although I have literally never heard it, I could in theory believe a small minority of people might want a thinner phone if competitors were able to do it. I don't buy that the phone manufacturers couldn't work together and agree to release "thicker" phones with reasonable battery though, as they do on just about every other industry feature. I assume it's just an excuse for them to further close the abilities of right to repair where serviceable or otherwise reasonable batteries would lead to less new phone sales. Exactly the same situation as the screens, I'm sure. Just keep quiet about these things though when marketing this.
- guywhocodes 5y agoI complain every day that there are essentially zero android phones that fit in my one hand any more. Everything is larger than 6" these days
- chabad360 5y agoYou should check out the pixel 4a. Small phone (which I strongly prefer), very cheap, and just a very good Android phone overall.
- serverlessmom 5y agoI just wanted to second the recommendation for the pixel 4a. I do a lot of work on my phone so it ended up being a bit too small for me, but it was definitely: inexpensive, had a nice camera, and was very portable. Also Google Fi has been really helpful for someone like me who takes a lot of overseas trips, really removes the headache from having to hunt down a sim without a working phone in a foreign country.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoIt's already nearly halfway into its pretty short support lifetime though
- dghughes 5y agoI noticed with the first generation Gorilla Glass I could do anything with it. I could put my phone in my pocket with keys and coins no problem. Then the next phone I got and my house key scratched it the very first day. My wild theory was the key was an aluminum (alloy) and it corroded creating corundum since there was no way a key could scratch the screen. I was just trying to console myself that I wasn't stupid and careless there were bigger forces at play.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoI dropped my iPhone 1 on a concrete ramp screen down (no screen protector either) and it slid all the way to the bottom, still screen facing down. I picked it up dreading a shattered display but there wasn't a scratch on it. The steel bezel was damaged though. Gorilla glass 1 with the thickness they used was indeed awesome.
- cglong 5y agoThis aligns with my observations too, but would love some empirical data to back this up if you still have them :)
- madaxe_again 5y agoWhy would any manufacturer want an unbreakable screen? The market for screen replacements is huge - they would likely face class action suits from third party repair shops, and would lose revenue themselves from the sale of replacement screens.
- whimsicalism 5y agoClass action lawsuits? Uh, no..
- joe__f 5y agoI just put a glass screen protector on my phone and a thin plastic case that goes round the back. I drop it reasonably regularly and I've never had a broken screen, it's a Samsung A series. I guess it costs about £10 for the case and glass layer, but that's not much
- KronisLV 5y agoAfter being worried about having fragile phones, i simply opted to go for function over form. This is my current phone, Ulefone Armor X7 Pro: https://www.gsmarena.com/ulefone_armor_x7_pro-10293.php https://www.gsmarena.com/ulefone_armor_x7_pro-10293.php While there are more sophisticated models in this space, for something of a budget oriented phone (which i'll probably use until the battery degrades, seeing as unfortunately it doesn't have a removable one), it's both usable and feels rugged enough. No longer do i have to worry much about things like dust/sand or even splashes of water and such. It actually fell once from about 1.5 meters out of my pocket and on stone bricks, while i was doing pull ups. I'm sure that the situation would have been worse if it had landed screen down, but even after landing on its corner, there was no visible damage afterwards. Plus, after using it for a while, i've found that the larger form factor doesn't bother me in the slightest, so i'm not exactly sure why modern phones are so obsessed with being thing. Then again, i also enjoy the form factor of ThinkPads, while there are people out there who call them ugly and too bulky.
- tunap 5y agoMy old Nokia 900 slipped from my pocket years ago as I climbed through a roof hatch, fell 25ft and exploded on the concrete floor. I collected the body, the sim, sim holder, SD card, SD holder, bezel, battery and battery cover and put all the pieces back together. It powered up and worked 100%, despite some cosmetic crinkle in the bezel. This year alone, I have had 3 phones slip or drop 2-3 ft(< 1m), from my pocket or hand, onto carpet and sand, and all came up with cracked glass, one with a screen that no longer lit up. Elegant fragility is the engineered intention, IMO For truth in advertising, they should rebrand it "Fragile Flower Glass"©.
- KronisLV 5y agoYou do have a point, but i also recall some of the older phones also being fragile back in the day. If i recall correctly, the first mobile phone that i had was a Nokia 5110: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5110-7.php https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5110-7.php From the outside, it looked like it should be pretty tough, yet when it fell off of a table and on the floor (not even hardwood, i think it was linoleum), it just straight up died. I bet that the thicker plastic frames of those old phones still absorb impacts better than most of the modern thin ones, yet a proper rubberized frame/case will almost always be even better. Plus, IP68 (which was described in IEC 60529 in 2001, a few years after that first phone came out) now being available in consumer hardware at an affordable price point is pretty nice! So it's mostly a matter of supporting the manufacturers who create the devices that you actually want. Maybe shopping around for a phone with a removable battery AND the aforementioned ruggedness would be a good move on my part.
- Tagbert 5y ago“Stronger” is a term than can mean a couple of things. The two main properties of “strength” are hardness and break resistance. The problem is that usually, when you you increase hardness, you make the glass less resistant to breaking. The glass becomes more brittle. Phone makers have to balance those two properties when designing their phones. Making glass thinner would actually make it less likely to break as it allows a little more flex to the glass. Making it thinner might compromise some other property of the glass so I’m not sure why they don’t use super thin glass.
- ksec 5y agoI think some day there is a possibility of going without the glass. And the whole display is simply a Plastic OLED but with a scratch resistance layer on top. Unfortunately it make the screen "feels" a little less luxurious.