Gorilla Glass Victus 2 conquers your phone screen’s arch nemesis – concrete

While smartphone display durability has improved exponentially since the early days, when one spill often meant ill, there’s still one surface that can be kryptonite for your prized OLED screen.

With the second generation of Gorilla Glass Victus, Coring set out to design glass that could better withstand drops on the concrete, which it points out is the world’s most abundantly engineered material.

“In lab testing, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 survived drops of up to one meter on a surface replicating concrete,” Corning says, while maintaining the same scratch resistance of the first Victus screen tech.

“Competitive aluminosilicate glasses from other manufacturers typically failed when dropped from half a meter or less. In addition, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 continued to survive drops up to two meters on a surface replicating asphalt and maintained scratch resistance up to four times better than competitive aluminosilicate.”

Part of the challenge for Corning was the increase in the average size and weight of smartphones over the last few years. The company says that screen sizes are 10% larger and phones are 15% heavier than they were just four years ago. That alone increases the probability of damage to the display when dropped.

The technology will arrive in the first smartphones within the next few months, Corning says. That means the Samsung Galaxy S23, is likely to arrive packaging the technology. Its predecessor, the S22 is currently equipped with Victus+.

Apple is a major investor in Corning and the iPhone 14 range has Victus on board. That almost assuredly means next year’s iPhone 15 will be equipped with Victus 2.

Currently, phones like the Sony Xperia 5 IV, Google Pixel 7 Pro and OnePlus 10T are equipped with Gorilla Glass Victus, so the next generation of those phones are also likely to rock the upgrade too. Overall, the company says Gorilla Glass has now been used in 8 billion devices by 45 brands.

“Smartphones are the centre of our digital lives, and the requirement for exceptional scratch and drop resistance has only increased with our growing reliance on clear, damage-free displays,” said David Velasquez, VP and GM of Gorilla Glass. “Surfaces matter, and rough surfaces like concrete are everywhere.”

Quite.