What's tougher, Gorilla Glass or Sapphire? The answer might surprise you

by John Brownlee

John Brownlee (12:00 pm PDT, Aug 30th)

Depending on who and when you ask, the iPhone 6 may or may not ship with a futuristic new Sapphire Glass display. Widely rumored to be nigh-invulnerable, Sapphire Glass is widely believed to be the technology that will make shattered iPhones a thing of the past. But will it really?

Seeking answers, the repair experts over at uBreakiFix have taken a piece of Gorilla Glass and a piece of Sapphire Glass through a series of torture tests to see which resists damage better. And the truth is that Sapphire isn’t actually as good as Gorilla Glass in one key scenario.

For their tests, uBreakiFix put Gorilla Glass and Sapphire Glass through three showdowns: a scratch resistance test using a tungsten drill bit, an impact test, and a four-point bend stress test.

The good news is that when it comes to being anti-scratch, nothing’s better than Sapphire. That’s why Apple uses it for the iPhone 5s TouchID system, after all. They don’t want scratches obscuring your fingerprint. Unfortunately, though, when it comes to bending and impact, Sapphire just doesn’t handle stress as well as Gorilla Glass.