If you're into high end watches, you'll know that the best material to use for the watch crystal is synthetic sapphire, while it's not scratch proof, it is highly scratch resistant. If you wear a watch long enough you can possibly get a few small scratches on the sapphire, but it's the best, most scratch resistant material currently in use, as far as I know, and if the iphone 4 did indeed have glass that is comparable in scratch resistance to sapphire, I'd be perfectly satisfied and very pleased with that, but read on to find out why I don't think this is the case.
Watch companies that wish to save a few bucks will opt for a less scratch resistant, but cheaper material like hardened mineral crystal, which trust me, can be scratched pretty easily, it's not much better than plain glass. Sapphire is definitely the way to go, but as mentioned above, even sapphire, will scratch.
Here is what I found curious about the demo video for the Iphone 4, when they're discussing this new, very high tech glass, they seem to be intentionally wording it to give the false impression that the glass is as hard as sapphire, and thus, is very scratch resistant, but, when you pay attention to the words, that's not what they say, though I do believe it's the impression they wish to give.
What they actually say is, the glass is comparable in strength to sapphire, and 30 times harder than plastic.
That's interesting, I have hangnails that are harder than plastic, being harder than plastic is not all that impressive, and, they invoke the word sapphire, because they know people often associate sapphire with the very scratrch resistant watch crystals, but, they don't say their new glass is as hard as sapphire, only as strong, and since strength isn't the property we want from sapphire, we want it's hardness, a 9 on the Mohs scale of hardness, the statement really does not mean this new glass is as scratch resistant as sapphire, the only thing we know is, as far as hardness and scratch resistance, is, it's much harder than plastic, which again means little.
I'm pretty certain they chose their wording very carefully here to give the impression the new glass has the hardness and scratch resistance of sapphire, without actually saying that. Clever, but a little deceptive in my opinion. Anybody else notice that?
Watch companies that wish to save a few bucks will opt for a less scratch resistant, but cheaper material like hardened mineral crystal, which trust me, can be scratched pretty easily, it's not much better than plain glass. Sapphire is definitely the way to go, but as mentioned above, even sapphire, will scratch.
Here is what I found curious about the demo video for the Iphone 4, when they're discussing this new, very high tech glass, they seem to be intentionally wording it to give the false impression that the glass is as hard as sapphire, and thus, is very scratch resistant, but, when you pay attention to the words, that's not what they say, though I do believe it's the impression they wish to give.
What they actually say is, the glass is comparable in strength to sapphire, and 30 times harder than plastic.
That's interesting, I have hangnails that are harder than plastic, being harder than plastic is not all that impressive, and, they invoke the word sapphire, because they know people often associate sapphire with the very scratrch resistant watch crystals, but, they don't say their new glass is as hard as sapphire, only as strong, and since strength isn't the property we want from sapphire, we want it's hardness, a 9 on the Mohs scale of hardness, the statement really does not mean this new glass is as scratch resistant as sapphire, the only thing we know is, as far as hardness and scratch resistance, is, it's much harder than plastic, which again means little.
I'm pretty certain they chose their wording very carefully here to give the impression the new glass has the hardness and scratch resistance of sapphire, without actually saying that. Clever, but a little deceptive in my opinion. Anybody else notice that?
