3 ms·
>>There’s one caveat: according to a market analyst, a sheet of Gorilla Glass costs around $3, while the same piece of sapphire glass would cost $30 I'm alread
by rtwtlkj 14y ago
>>There’s one caveat: according to a market analyst, a sheet of Gorilla Glass costs around $3, while the same piece of sapphire glass would cost $30
I'm already paying a lot of money for the smartphone what difference does it make another $30-$50 dollars. Especially considering that is far more expensive to replace the screen of the phone and in a lot of cases you'll have to replace the entire phone which will cost you a couple hundred dollars.
- randall 14y agoAdmittedly this is the most unscientific of sources, but this Yahoo Answers -ducks- post claims Sapphires have a hardness of 9 out of 10, where 10 is diamond. That leads me to believe it'd be harder to crack than glass.
- svachalek 14y agoI believe hardness has more to do with scratching than cracking; e.g. plastic is harder to crack than glass, but softer.
- rayiner 14y agoIndeed, cracking is generally inversely related with hardness. Harder things are easier to crack than softer things.
- wyager 14y agoHardness only determines how difficult something is to scratch. Resistance to cracking is much more complex. For example, I could easily smash a diamond with a steel hammer. But I could also use that diamond to slowly grind the hammer to dust.
- jessriedel 14y agowyager and svachalek are right, but the 9/10 harness was confirmed by the OP video. It's pretty darn scratch resistant.
- DrStalker 14y agoSapphire has, by definition, 9/10 on Moh's hardness scale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness (Sapphire is just Corundum that isn't red or pink)
- regularfry 14y agoSpecifically, it's corundum that's blue because it's got titanium and iron impurities. Anyone trying to sell you a "white sapphire" (or this "sapphire" glass) is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I can see why, though - it's an easier sell than calling it just corundum.
- jsnell 14y ago$30 extra in the bill of materials probably means an extra $50 in the wholesale price. And that means and extra $100 in the retail price. Which would result in significantly lower volumes, and start a feedback cycle that'd further raise prices.
- beachstartup 14y agoextra $100 in the retail price amortized 24 months = $4/month on a cell plan that subsidizes the phone purchase. even less when you prorate the difference in retail price by the "up front" cost of the phone ($50 or $199 or whatever)