There have been a number of recent reports and rumors about Apple's potential use of a stronger sapphire glass material for the display panel of their new iPhone 6 smartphone. Just last week we shared a video from Youtuber Marques Brownlee who put an alleged iPhone 6 display panel through a series of scratch and flexiblity tests in order to determine whether or not the panel was made of the new sapphire glass material. Results of the test seemed to indicate that the panel could actually be made of sapphire. However, a new Youtube video by Brownlee seems to suggest otherwise.
In the new video Marques Brownlee puts the iPhone 6 display panel through another scratch test, only this time he uses Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness to determine the hardness of the materials involved. A higher rating on the Mohs scale means the material cannot be scratched by any materials rated lower on the scale. For instance, the Gorilla glass display cover of the iPhone 5s has a Mohs scale hardness rating of 6.8. But in his original video Brownlee used a steel knife for his scratch test which has lower rating of 5.5. The use of Mohs scale explains why the knife was unable to leave any scratches on the display panel.
For the new scratch test Brownlee uses a variety of sandpaper, garnet which is rated a 7 on the Mohs scale, and emery which has a rating of 8. Using the garnet sandpaper against the iPhone 5s home button, which is actually made from sapphire glass and has a higher Mohs scale rating of 9, results in no scratches. However, when using the garnet against the iPhone 5s Gorilla glass a lot of scratches begin to appear. The display panel of the iPhone 6 is also scratched by the garnet though not nearly as bad as the iPhone 5s. The use of the emery sandpaper has pretty much the same results as the garnet test.
Brownlee notes that the iPhone 6 display glass made a different sound during the scratch test than the iPhone 5s panel, which could suggest that the iPhone 6 glass may be made from a different material. It's possible that the iPhone 6 panel is made from a new harder variety of Corning's Gorilla glass. Or it could be that the panel has only a thin sapphire coating.
Watch the video below to see the iPhone 6 display panel put to the test.
No comments:
Post a Comment