Summary
- Gorilla Glass 7i brings high-performance enhancements to cheaper devices, targeting the value smartphone market.
- Corning’s lab results show Glass 7i is more durable than competitors, surviving falls on rough surfaces.
- It’s first coming to a future Oppo smartphone before rolling out to hardware from other OEMs.
When it comes to the glass that covers your smartphone display, Corning is the company everyone knows. Its Gorilla Glass technology has been keeping phones protected since the days of the first iPhone. Now, just a few months after we saw Gorilla Armor arrive on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Corning has returned to re-establish its front-runner status with Gorilla Glass 7i. And unlike its last couple of announcements, this material is designed to bring some of those high-performance enhancements to cheaper devices.
As detailed in Corning’s press release, Gorilla Glass 7i is focused on providing improved drop and scratch performance “to the intermediate and value-segment smartphone market.” Effectively, much as chipset makers aim to bring higher-end features to lower-cost devices, Corning is looking to tackle the same goal with its glass. The name even suggests as much, with the “7” representing Corning’s seventh generation of Gorilla Glass (known more broadly as Gorilla Glass Victus). Considering how excellent Victus has been for the last few years, it’s only good news to see its strengths slipping down to lower price points.
In today’s announcement, Corning boasts of more durable cover glasses compared to the lithium aluminosilicate glasses its rivals offer. In lab results, Corning found Gorilla Glass 7i endured falls up to one meter on rough, sandpaper-coated surfaces, while its competitors could only survive at half the height. It does so while using thinner panels than Gorilla Glass 5, which survived taller drops but at the cost of utilizing a thicker piece of glass.
Corning promises durability, protection, and affordability
Despite the reliance on older materials like Gorilla Glass 3 — which shipped on this year’s Pixel 8a — for budget phones, it’s clear Corning sees an opportunity for budget and midrange devices to use better glass without breaking the bank. As noted by the company’s vice president and general manager, David Velasquez, durability and protection remain priorities for the glass technology manufacturer, no matter the price tag of the final device. Considering how great the Pixel 8a already feels in your hands, higher quality
With any luck, OEMs will start using newer, better glass in their devices before too long. In fact, we already know where Gorilla Glass 7i is headed first: to an unknown Oppo phone, presumably planned to arrive later this year.
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