The damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3 is swinging into India along with its Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass variant. It’s even offering reason for homegrown handset makers who are keen on aping bigger brands as long as cost of production can be kept low, to adopt it.
Corning Gorilla Glass is a special type of durable protection that 33 OEMs across the world use on more than 2400 device designs. It gels well with touch-sensitive displays and is shatter-proof to a certain extent. The antimicrobial version of the glass stops the growth of mold, mildew, algae, fungi or bacteria and this property is said to be effective throughout the lifetime of the gadget using it.
The company is currently hard at work on creating commercially viable curved glass technology. It is also keen on creating anti-reflective cover glass. Corning Gorilla Glass’ J E Hollis has revealed to IndianExpress that it is in talks with Indian manufacturers interested in making their devices more durable with the help of the glass in question. No brands have been named, though it’s clear that affordable smartphones and/or tablets form part of the target.
Current Corning Gorilla Glass rivals:
As of now, only a couple of rivals come to mind when thinking about alternatives to Gorilla Glass – there’s sapphire and Asahi Dragontrail. Apple is investing heavily in sapphire and even has it on the iPhone 5S, for one. Expensive watches and other luxury phones also use the material. But Corning says it’s heavy and the cost of producing it is high, and has even posted a video showing how it compares against it’s very own product.
There’s also Asahi’s Dragontrail glass which was announced back in 2011. But we haven’t heard much of it since then even if we’ve seen it a few times, including on the Xolo Q1010i, Sony Xperia Z1/Z, Xiaomi MI-2 and so on. It doesn’t seem to have taken off quite as well as Gorilla Glass did though. Maybe it entered the market too late after Corning established its presence?
The latter’s move into India with its Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and antimicrobial option will only help to give it more recognition than its competitors, especially if it happens to penetrate the mid-range segment successfully.