When the Galaxy Note 7 was launched, Zac Nelson aka JerryRigEverything immediately brought the smartphone under a durability test. It did pass the challenge but he said the phone wasn’t as scratch-resistant. He was surprised that the new Note scratched as early as level 3. That discovery was interesting because it was already the latest Gorilla Glass 5 which meant it should be harder than the previous Gorilla displays. Because of that, Note 7 owners were encouraged by Zac to get a protection cover for the possible heavy scratching.
A few days later, Corning responded to the scratch test and said that the GG5 is actually harder than the metal pick so it’s impossible. A Corning representative said that the metal pick could only be rubbing off material onto the glass. Well, we saw the video, and the scratch appeared permanent.
Over a month has passed and Mr. JerryRigEverything posted an update on YouTube. It was a correction video focusing on the Gorilla Glass 5, explaining the problem he ran with his Mohs scratch kit—-the material he uses for his durability tests. Perhaps Nelson was really wondering as to why only the Note 7 scratched that easily so he tried to figure out what went wrong.
This correction video below explains the Mohs Hardness Scale and what he did that compromised the results:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4Kf5AL7Q
Nelson explained that the Mohs Hardness Scale is a ‘general scale for finding the relative hardness of different minerals’. Such scale helps in showing the difference between Plastic, Glass, Pure Sapphire, and Diamonds. To test the hardness of a material, the Mohs Hardness Kit is used.
What happened to the first two durability tests he did, JerryRigEverything explained that unlike when he tested the iPhone 7, the pick he used was sharpened. He used a sharpening stone that came with the kit. He didn’t knew then that when the stone is used, some little fragments are embedded into the tip of the pick. Apparently, the stone is made from a combination of Aluminium oxide and Silicone carbide. These two are around 8 on Mohs scale and they are unknowingly and microscopically stuck into the tip which is a 3 on the sale. The 8 is harder obviously, making it easy to scratch the glass at number 3.
Nelson said there was “contamination” in the process already. The pick was the only inconsistent variable and not the screen. This makes sense actually because there was something “new” that came into the picture. That new stuff are those little fragments we actually can’t see but are hard enough to scratch anew.
Moving forward, the YouTuber said he will no longer sharpen a pick when doing a scratch test so as not to compromise the results. He added that he will only buy another kit if needed.
SOURCE: JerryRigEverything
Just in time for the phones discontinuation………nice.
He’s done a bang-up job testing the Note 7 screen.