3 ms·
table stakes are much higher now. You'll find similar numbers and a similar winnowing out in PCs, from a time anyone could bang together a PC from standard part
by Zigurd 3y ago
table stakes are much higher now. You'll find similar numbers and a similar winnowing out in PCs, from a time anyone could bang together a PC from standard parts. Michael Dell sold them out of his car trunk. That hasn't entirely disappeared but now it's a narrow space between gaming rig builders and big OEMs.
Phones will be even less forgiving of niche business models. If you can't design a titanium case, or try (and fail, and absorb the loss) to monopolize the supply of very large sapphire crystals, you can't play in phones.
- jjoonathan 3y agoAre corundum screens standard now? I thought it went the other way and the market largely gave up on corundum and just uses glass now.
- cbozeman 3y agoSapphire crystals are still used for the lens covers, which makes sense, because if there's any component of your phone you want to provide with extreme protection, it's the camera lens. A screen can work fine with a crack or a dozen, but a cracked camera lens? Game over.
- dtx1 3y agoI wonder why there are still no widely available sapphire crystal screens.
- pie420 3y agogrowing a sapphire crystal is difficult, and like silicon chips, the bigger the surface area, the chances of defects goes up exponentially. Additionaly, ading $200-300 to the BOM to make your product last longer is a bad idea, since each broken screen is usually a sale or a $500 repair bill. simple economics.
- dtx1 3y agoI wonder why there are still no widely available sapphire crystal screens.
- Kirby64 3y agoTwo reasons: large, phone sized sheets of sapphire are difficult to manufacture and be optically clear. Also, sapphire is more brittle than glass... so despite scratching less easily, it's much much more likely to shatter if you drop a phone. Glass, as much as it has deficiency, is a compromise inbetween. And it's way cheaper, to boot.