The Samsung Galaxy Alpha has been dubbed ‘the sleekest Samsung Galaxy smartphone ever’ but apparently sleek also means tough to Samsung. The Korean based manufacturing giant unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Alpha which has had people buzzing about it’s all metal frame since its announcement in the fall of this year. Why? Many smartphone users believe that the metal construction is a welcome departure from the flimsy plastic feel of some of the current smartphone offerings on the market today. Well, it was revealed that it’s not just the metal casing that makes the Samsung Galaxy Alpha tough, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha’s screen can also take a beating thanks to the first ever inclusion of Gorilla Glass 4.
So what is Gorilla Glass 4? Besides sounding like an obscure NES title that your grandma would give you for Christmas, it is glass manufacturer Corning’s most durable cover glass to date. In fact, Corning’s scientists (or, scienticians for you Simpsons fans) did some digging and discovered that the vast majority of cover glass failures (70%, in fact) can be traced back to damage caused by sharp objects. It seems that Corning took what they learned and used it to create Gorilla Glass 4 which promises to be the most damage resistant cover glass available. The General Manager and President of Corning East Asia, Cliff Hund, had this to say about the Corning and Samsung pairing, “Device makers want to go thinner without sacrificing damage resistance. Samsung is not only meeting these requirements, but is on the cutting edge of smartphone design. The Galaxy ALPHA is the culmination of our close collaboration with Samsung.”
Gorilla Glass 4’s debut on the Samsung Alpha is all the more impressive when you consider that the Samsung Alpha is a mere 7 mm thick. So what is Gorilla Glass 4’s contribution to the 7mm thickness? Only a slender .4 millimeters. Corning is so proud of the durability of Gorilla Glass 4 that they’ve even released a video that will demonstrate to users how resilient their latest iteration of cover glass is: