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iPhone 12 – Tests confirm much tougher screen

Independent tests have at least partly verified Apple’s claims that the iPhone 12 is significantly tougher than its predecessors.

One of the stand-out claims that Apple made during the iPhone 12 launch event was that its display glass performed four times better than other phones in drop scenarios. This is allegedly down to the use of a special technology that Apple names Ceramic Shield.

Now that the iPhone 12 is out in the wild, interested parties are starting to put these claims to the test. One of those parties is accessory reviews YouTube channel MobileReviewsEh, which recently put the iPhone 12 through the ringer.

The channel’s force test applied pointed pressure to the center of the iPhone 12 display, and measured the point (in newtons) at which it cracked. The iPhone 12 scored 442 newtons of force, as compared to 352 newtons for the iPhone 11, and described the large amount of extra effort it took to break.

So the iPhone 12 is indeed tough. But one question many had about this Ceramic Shield technology was whether it would stand up to scratches any better. Thousands of everyday brushes with keys and coins can be the bane of even the toughest smartphone screen.

Sure enough, the iPhone 12 came out of the scratch test better than the iPhone 11. The newer phone showed signs of scratches at level 7 of the test, which involved increasingly fine grades of pointed tools, where the iPhone 11 started showing wear at level 6.

Apple describes its Ceramic Shield technology as “a new high temperature crystallization step that grows nano-ceramic crystals within the glass matrix”. Whatever the company is doing, it seems to be working.