dragontail-glass-stress-test-60-kilograms

Corning's Gorilla glass just got its first real competitor. Today, Asahi unveiled its new Dragonrtail glass, which it claims is six times stronger than conventional soda lime glass.

Corning’s Gorilla glass has gotten a lot of attention in the last year. It’s used on a variety of Samsung, LG, Dell, Motorola, and hundreds of other devices due to its scratch and shatter resistant qualities (see video below), but now it has a competitor. Today, Asahi Glass debuted its new ‘Dragontrail’ glass it claims is six times as tough as chemically-treated soda lime glass and is a perfect fit for most portable gadgets.

At the Tokyo unveiling, Asahi let reporters use keys to try to scratch the glass and also showed videos of the glass withstanding 60 kilograms of weight and staying together after being hit by a hammer, reports IDG. The glass appears strong enough, but neither company is releasing any hard figures.

Asahi claims it has been developing Dragontrail glass for the last two years and it is already being included in some electronic devices, but refused to identify which partners. Luckily for Corning, Dragontrail won’t fully enter the market until 2012. The competition will be good for suppliers, however. With a viable alternative, both glass companies will be forced to lower their prices.

Still, Dragontrail has a lot of catching up to do. Sony just revealed that it is using Gorilla glass in some of its Bravia LCD TVs as well.

Asahi Dragontrail glass demo

Corning Gorilla glass demo

Showing 5 comments

  1. ioman at 11:38am 20th January 2011 Who does Apple use for the glass on their iPhone? It's supposedly as tough as saphire crystal right?
  2. Rusty Shackleford at 9:39am 20th January 2011 Should be easy enough to tell which existing devices use Dragontrail: Just start gouging every smartphone you can with your keys and we'll figure it out. Doesn't scratch = Dragontrail.
    1. Dan Gaul at 9:54am 20th January 2011 But Gorilla Glass is a much cooler name.
      1. ioman at 11:38am 20th January 2011 I think DragonTail sounds better. Gorilla glass reminds me of the Gorilla super glue.
        1. Dan Gaul at 11:44am 20th January 2011 But it's Dragon Trail.. like you are following a Dragon. Just weird imagery there. A gorilla I think of being very strong.
Close Suggestion This variety of amoeba is the world’s smallest farmer
View Article