One of the features of the iPhone 12 series is the special Ceramic Shield, developed by Gorilla Glass using nano-ceramic crystals. According to Apple, this coating has four times better drop resistance. The company claims that this is the most durable glass used in smartphones. After the first reviews, tech reviewers immediately started checking these claims.
One of the first to test the durability of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro was the owner of the popular YouTube channel EverythingApplePro. When dropped from the height of the waist on different sides of the case, both devices only slightly scratched, but nothing critical. A similar result when dropped from head level, but a few damaged pixels appeared on the iPhone 12 Pro.
The iPhone 12 has passed the durability tests due to its ceramic shield
After that, the Youtuber climbed to a height of about three meters. The standard iPhone 12 did not have any obvious damage; but upon checking it turned out that the camera stopped working. The more expensive iPhone 12 Pro survived the crash without any problems. Further, both smartphones were thrown from the same height with the back cover down; which in both cases resulted in broken glass. In this case, the front glass remained intact. Only after dropping the screen down, the iPhone 12 Pro still cracked the ceramic glass; but the iPhone 12 passed this test. The Youtuber was very impressed with the ruggedness of the new smartphones.
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The YouTuber TechRax decided to compare the strength of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 11. Both smartphones survived the first drop with minimal damage to the aluminum frame. This was followed by a throw with the screen down from the head level, which the last year’s device did not survive – the front glass was covered with cracks. With the new iPhone 12, nothing happened with the same drop.
MobileReviewsEh decided to test the strength of the new iPhone 12 in a completely different way. He used a special device to press on the screen. The Ceramic Shield withstood an applied force of 442 Newtons before cracking. For comparison, last year’s iPhone 11 broke at 352 Newtons.
Interestingly, the glass on the iPhone 12 is not only stronger than the last generation but also less vulnerable to scratches. If on the iPhone 11, like on the vast majority of other modern smartphones, small scratches appear at the sixth level of the Mohs scale, then in the case of the new iPhone 12, visible traces appears only on the seventh level.
