Broken displays are not inevitable. They hide a crime against design. Samsung brings the industry to a high level of durability. Your turn, Apple.
Original material
Twenty six. So many times an independent lab has dropped Samsung's new 'shatterproof panel', a display that is not yet fitted to any of the company's devices, but the first is just around the corner. After all consecutive falls from a height of 120 cm, there was no sign of damage on the OLED display, neither from the front nor from the side. Samsung also showed in the video how the new screen is hit with a rubber mallet. The display passed the test successfully.
Can you imagine iPhone going through this test? Two years ago, I already spoke about the ever-beating display in iPhone. Two. Of the year. And yet they still struggle constantly, and when that happens on iPhone X, it costs an insane $ 280 to repair.
As Samsung's benchmark shows, device makers already understand how to make phones and tablets that won't beat. The question is when will such displays become the rule, not the exception.
Strength has always been sacrificed for the beauty of devices, since the advent of portable electronics. I remember walking through the halls of CES in the 2000s and looking at rugged mini-PCs and tablets that were not subject to shock, temperature and water. These machines were built for military use and looked to match. They seemed to be wrapped in a bulletproof plastic composite case. Even today, using the most rugged electronics on the market requires you to operate it through the gadget's protective exoskeleton. An experience like this is acceptable in harsh conditions, but you are unlikely to miss it in a subway car.
Unsurprisingly, I believed that ruggedness and beauty would never go together, and that rugged electronics would be forever doomed to look unattractive. Sure, Motorola started making almost indestructible devices in 2015, but they looked like plastic toys with a flashy cheap glossy industrial design. The level of engineering was at its best, but the device lacked the final piece of refinement – the feeling of touching the glass, the idea that you have something precious in your hands – what Apple is undividedly in the lead from generation to generation iPhone. In addition, seemingly solid smartphones Motorola were actually picking up scratches.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 2
My opinion finally changed this month when I unboxed the recently released Samsung Tab Active 2, a small Android tablet that costs about $ 430 and is not being marketed to a wide audience. Instead, it is sold to seasoned corporate clients, those who need a tablet that can be dropped or used in the rain without having to rush to the nearest Apple store and fix it. What surprised me: Despite the fact that the screen can literally freeze in ice or write on it underwater, the tablet feels like any other touchscreen device from Samsung. In other words, in terms of engineering, the Active 2 is a fairly high-quality device: thin and light, but 'let it go'. And all this is thanks to microtechnology, which Samsung was not particularly ready to talk about after my question.
If you put Active 2 in front of a hundred people, then all hundred of them will not be able to guess that in front of them is a protected device. So isn't it time to make all devices secure?
To the credit of all manufacturers, including Apple, they began to produce more durable devices. In particular, around 2016, the entire industry took care of protecting phones from water ingress, for which they used glue to seal ports, a coating around the processors that allows you to withstand splashes on a smartphone or being in the humid air of a bathroom during a very hot shower despite violating the guarantee of death.
Think of durability-focused advertising and rugged products from Samsung, the only hardware manufacturer in the world that has proven that it can go with Apple on par in both market share and portable electronics ideas. Then draw parallels with the media hype around device testing Apple and the company's calls for a response as a result of design flaws. I can't help but wonder if users have reached the boiling point? We've finally entered an era where we won't tolerate $ 100 or more for screen replacement. Especially now that really shatterproof screen technology exists.
By Mark Wilson
'Oh, how many times have they told the world …'. Of course, weekly batteries, shatterproof screens, 'eternal' housings, and other much-coveted technologies are ready for mainstream electronics use. But are the marketers of the companies ready for this? A durable and visually cool device will be changed much less often than an equally beautiful one, but not so capable of withstanding external destructive influences.
Can Samsung take such a step? Why not, only the company will have to try to maintain interest in its new products, which are likely to replace existing solutions. Or is it a utopia and the lot of a narrow circle of devices with an unattractive appearance, intended for the military and workers?