Whether you like it or not, smartphones helped usher in the concept of the “food selfie”, which is about as pointless as a solar powered torch. But more frustratingly, smartphones also introduced the new problem of smashed phone screens, which as a real issue if your hands are like ice rinks.
While the “food selfie” thing won’t go away anytime soon (sadly), Samsung has announced that smashed phone screens are no longer a worry because it has invented a new “unbreakable” display screen.
The new display screen is a flexible OLED panel with a transparent cover already attached and is described as having same properties as your usual glass smartphone screen while remaining as bendy an Olympic gymnast. The screen was apparently so tough that UL (Underwriters Laboratories), an official testing company for OSHA, slapped it with a big “certified” sticker.
More flexible than an Olympic gymnast, more indestructible than a Nokia 3310. Apparently.
Just to prove that it is more than peacocking, Samsung says that its new
“unbreakable” screen “functioned normally” with no visible damage after withstanding 26 successive drops from heights between 1.2 to 1.6 metres, extreme temperatures as high as 71 degrees Celsius and as low as -32 degrees Celsius.
That’s… pretty tough, I guess.
The temperature resistance is impressive, but the height thing hasn’t convinced me. I’m 1.8 metres tall, which lies outside of the reported tested range for Samsung’s “unbreakable” screen. Who’s to say that it won’t break if it was dropped at 1.61 metres height?
Samsung’s new screen may have also inadvertently motivated every curious phone owner to test the “unbreakable” claim out in an attempt to prove them wrong. Oh boy, what have you done, Samsung…
Samsung haven’t revealed when its new indestructible screen will hit shelves as mass production of the component hasn’t been announced, so we don’t need to worry about getting smacked in the face from a phone being thrown from a building just yet.