Gorilla glass IS destructible!!!

[ebarr727]

This past Friday night, a friend of my daughter's came over with her one-week-old Droid Razr (orig). She dropped it on the cement in front of our door. She said it dropped about 2-3 feet. It fell on its bottom right corner--I saw a tiny dent in that area. The gorilla glass screen shattered!!! It was a very sad occurrence, but it taught me (and her) that gorilla glass can withstand some scratching, but the glass itself is not much stronger than other screens otherwise. Word to the wise!

 

[carter17]

Yea just depends tho had my old DROID x fall down about 20 steps on to concrete was fine.

 

[d.meyer]

Its all about the angle of the dangle

 

[BuMMeR-X]

Its all about the angle of the dangle

LOL....LOL...LOL.....

 

[AndroidXTC]

This past Friday night, a friend of my daughter's came over with her one-week-old Droid Razr (orig). She dropped it on the cement in front of our door. She said it dropped about 2-3 feet. It fell on its bottom right corner--I saw a tiny dent in that area. The gorilla glass screen shattered!!! It was a very sad occurrence, but it taught me (and her) that gorilla glass can withstand some scratching, but the glass itself is not much stronger than other screens otherwise. Word to the wise!

Why the surprise its glass. Have you ever seen what a tiny pebble can do to your car windshield? Call it what you want but anything ceramic Will shatter when hit right.

 

[B. Diddy]

It's damage/scratch resistant, not damageproof. So there's a lower chance of minor damage, but just as a water resistant watch will still die if you submerge it deep enough or long enough, Gorilla Glass will definitely scratch or break if you stress it hard enough.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Something I learned about tempered glass (I hauled it for years as a truck driver)....I know Gorilla Glass is a bit different, but its still tempered glass.

You can whack it pretty hard with a hammer if you hit it on the flat part (such as the screen facing you) and nothing will happen.

But if you hit it on the edge with anything hard...it will come tumbling down and be nothing but a large pile of glass beads about the size of a pea...I've seen that demonstrated with a very large sheet of jumbo glass (appx. 12 feet x 18 feet)

 

[justmatt]

Mechanics of materials in a nutshell for those who may be interested:

Everything is destructible. The two main attributes used to determine the ultimate strength of a material are stress (the amount of force applied over its cross-sectional area) and strain (the change in length of the material over the original length). Gorilla glass (and most glasses and ceramics) are hard but brittle. This means they will usually be able to withstand a lot of force, but will not be able to deflect very far without breaking. Dropping a glass object on its corner will concentrate the force over a smaller area and increase the chances of deflecting it enough to fracture. This would also be amplified by dropping it onto a surface that does not yield to absorb some of the fall energy (concrete).

The graph attached essentially shows the force applied vs the deflection of the material for various substances. Examples of each of the lines on the graph would be glass, steel, aluminum and plastic.

Gorilla glass (i believe justifiably) trades its flexibility for durability to prevent scratches and dings that would occur by having your phone in your pocket along with other misc objects / dust / detritus.

This is a pretty high level overview and I'm sure I missed a few caveats to the rules but should be a good overview of why gorilla glass is what it is.

TL;DR - Gorilla glass is hard and brittle.

 

[jroc]

Gorilla Glass was never said to be indestructible. Its just named after a strong animal.

Many, many face plants, drops by my Droid X1 since July 2010...a few scratches here n there. My kids mother had it for a few months last year... big crack in the corner. She has a Nexus S....whatever happened, how it dropped, it has 3 big cracks, she had it for a few weeks.

My RAZR has a lil scratch, been dropped here n there, had it since 11-11. Dropped it in the bathroom today, no crack.

Whether it will crack or scratch depends on different things. ebarr...the only difference between you and all of us who posted is we knew this alot sooner than today...lol.

 

[droidntn]

Insurance.

 

[rbess1965]

Yep. Insurance. At least until the cost of getting another catches up with the smartphone deductible, which I estimate is about a year. If you break it after a year chances are you can buy another from some one else trading up to the next latest and greatest which happens every freaking 3 months these days Anyway at least a year. By then the new has worn off