Gorilla Glass vs Dragontrail vs Ceramic Shield and beyond

Gorilla Armor 2 was launched this month, and it’s the latest version of the popular scratch-resistant glass for smartphones and tablets. The tech has been available for over a decade now, but it’s not the only solution on the market.

Dragontrail Glass, sapphire, Ceramic Shield, and tempered glass are all popular protective glass solutions. So how do they differ from each other? And which one is best? We’ve got some answers.

Gorilla Glass is made by US company Corning, and the tech first gained prominence as the protective glass of choice for the original iPhone. It’s since been available on smartphones and tablets from a variety of manufacturers. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance the phone you’re reading this on has Gorilla Glass.

Dragontrail Glass emerged as the alternative solution to Gorilla Glass, being made by Japanese company AGC (Asahi Glass Co). The tech has been around since the early 2010s and is often used on budget-tier handsets.

Ceramic Shield is another solution, being made by Corning but exclusive to Apple’s iPhone range. It debuted on Apple’s iPhone 12 series back in 2020 and has been around ever since.

One trend we’ve also seen in the last couple of years is for some brands like Xiaomi, HUAWEI, and HONOR to use their own protective glass technologies. We’ve also seen sapphire glass emerge as an option in the mid-2010s, but the brittle nature of the material means it’s seldom used for smartphone screens.

Finally, tempered glass is the cheapest protective glass solution. So if your Android phone doesn’t have Gorilla Glass, Dragontrail Glass, an OEM solution, or sapphire, it’ll have this tech at the very least.

Gorilla Glass has gone through many iterations. The first generation of the product launched in 2007, followed by Gorilla Glass 2 in 2012 and Gorilla Glass 3 in 2013. 2020’s Gorilla Glass Victus and 2022’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 are found on loads of flagship and mid-range phones. However, Gorilla Armor (2024) and Gorilla Armor 2 (2025) are the latest solutions on the market right now. The former solution debuted on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, while Gorilla Armor 2 debuted on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. In any event, you can view all the various iterations below.

The basic process is the same for each generation, using an “ion-exchange process.” This is essentially a strengthening process where the glass is placed in a bath of molten salt measuring 400 degrees Celsius (752 degrees Fahrenheit), according to its manufacturer Corning. Potassium ions in the bath create a “layer of compressive stress” on the glass, basically giving it added strength.

Gorilla Glass Victus 2 retains the same two-meter durability for drops and the same scratch resistance performance as Gorilla Glass Victus. That is, you can expect double the scratch resistance of 2018’s Gorilla Glass 6. However, Corning says the glass is capable of withstanding drops of up to a meter onto concrete (something the original Victus isn’t rated for at all). The company also said Victus 2 is designed with today’s bulkier phones in mind, claiming that today’s devices are 15% heavier and have 10% larger screens compared to four years ago.

Corning didn’t provide specific drop heights for Gorilla Armor, but asserted that it performed up to three times better in lab-based drop tests versus rival aluminosilicate glass solutions. The company also said that scratch resistance was over four times better than these solutions. There’s no word on how Gorilla Armor compares to Victus 2 in this regard.

The biggest reason to get a phone with Gorilla Armor is the reduced reflectivity, though. Corning says you can expect reflectivity to be reduced by up to 75%. And this is something we’ve noticed on the S24 Ultra.

Meanwhile, the newer Gorilla Armor 2, which debuted on the S25 Ultra, features a glass ceramic design. Corning says the new solution can better withstand drops on “rough, challenging surfaces.” It also said the glass was able to withstand drops from 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) onto a surface replicating concrete in lab tests. The new protective glass offers anti-reflection properties once again, reducing glare under bright lights or when outdoors. We’ve asked Corning for more details regarding Armor 2 improvements and will update the article accordingly.

Made by Japanese giant AGC, Dragontrail is the second most popular third-party brand among manufacturers.

The company uses a so-called float process to create its glass, sending liquid glass over a furnace of molten tin. Particles are then added for strengthening before the glass is quickly cooled and sent for cutting.

Dragontrail Glass comes in a few variants, with Dragontrail, Dragontrail X, and Dragontrail Pro being the most prominent solutions. 2016’s Dragontrail Pro delivered 30% better durability against corner drops thanks to a rounded glass edge. AGC added that it should also withstand more bending than standard Dragontrail.

In saying so, AGC confirmed to Android Authority that Dragontrail Star 2 is its latest protective glass as of 2024. This glass is indeed used on recent phones like the OnePlus 11R and OPPO Reno 9 series. But we’ve also seen older Dragontrail tech used on 2019’s Pixel 3a series.

YouTuber JerryRigEverything tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which has Gorilla Armor. He scratched the display with picks and found deeper grooves once he used picks rated eight on the Mohs hardness scale. That’s a significant improvement over previous glass solutions and Dragontrail Glass, which generally display grooves when using picks rated seven on the Mohs scale (higher is harder). That’s a major step up in scratch resistance. We haven’t seen major third-party tests for the Galaxy S25 Ultra and its Gorilla Armor 2 yet, but we’re expecting a similar hardiness.

In saying so, older Gorilla Glass solutions (e.g. Victus) and Dragontrail Glass should both fare similarly well in terms of everyday scratch resistance. This is also reflected in the Vickers hardness scale, with Victus 2 touting a Vickers hardness of between 595 and 670, while AGC’s Star 2 glass has a rating of between 570 and 640. In other words, there’s some cross-over here in terms of scratch resistance.

As for bending or impact? We don’t have a direct comparison between the more recent rival glass solutions. The closest we get to an ideal comparison is a 2013 video by Corning, showing Gorilla Glass 2 and 3 faring better than an unnamed competitor’s product (presumably Dragontrail).

AGC hasn’t disclosed any specific height ratings for Dragontrail Glass impact resistance, either. Instead, the company only says the edge of its Dragontrail Pro solution boasts 30% better durability than the previous generation. Meanwhile, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 touts two-meter drop resistance, while Gorilla Armor 2 was able to withstand 2.2-meter drops onto a surface resembling concrete. Corning also asserts that “competitive aluminosilicate glasses from other manufacturers” usually fail when dropped from half a meter or less.

The cheapest solution of the lot, tempered glass, is the material of choice for many third-party screen protectors.

According to Scientific American, tempered glass is first cut to size and then subjected to heating in a tempering oven. The glass is heated to just over 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit), followed by a blast of cold air for a few seconds.

The process makes the outer surface of the glass cooler than the inside, which creates compression on the outside and tension on the inside, giving us stronger glass.

How does it fare compared to Gorilla Glass?

All glass solutions have similar scratch resistance levels, including tempered glass. So you should have peace of mind either way when it comes to scratches.

Drops are another story though, as Gorilla Glass and Dragontrail Glass are typically engineered to survive greater drops than tempered glass. You’ll still want a tempered glass protector on your screen if you don’t have Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail Glass on your phone to begin with, though.

Sapphire is the most expensive option on this list, which means it’s mostly restricted to smaller bits like camera lenses and watch faces (including a few Apple Watch models). But we also saw HTC release a version of the U Ultra phone with a sapphire screen back in 2017.

According to a 2014 Pocketnow video, Sapphire screens are made by placing a sapphire seed at the bottom of a barrel. This barrel then gets filled with condensed corundum and leftover uncrystallized sapphire from previous batches. The barrel is then put inside a furnace, which heats the materials to a maximum of 2,200 degrees Celsius.

The process takes 16 to 17 days and results in a 115-kilogram hunk of sapphire. From here, a block is cut out for a smartphone display, then polished and cut further.

When it comes to scratch resistance, sapphire glass is the king of the mountain. Sapphire measures nine on the Mohs scale of hardness (higher is harder), just behind diamonds. It can withstand being scratched with materials at this same level, according to a UBreakIFix video. Meanwhile, Gorilla Glass, Dragontrail Glass, and tempered glass get scratched with materials at level six on the Mohs scale. So expect sapphire-clad devices to fare better in your purse or occupied pocket.

This impressive scratch resistance comes at a price, though. Sapphire glass is known to shatter very easily compared to rival glass solutions. The earlier UBreakIFix video shows that Gorilla Glass can bend way more before shattering compared to sapphire.

This result is echoed by Corning’s own “strength after abrasion damage” test, which tosses the glass sheets into a barrel filled with various items and tumbles them for 45 minutes. Afterward, the sheets are removed and subject to load testing. Corning claims the sapphire sheet broke after a load of 161lbs (73kg) was placed on it, while its own solution withstood over 430lbs (195kg) of force. To be fair, it was an in-house test of Corning’s making, but it still made for a revealing result. Check out the screenshot above, and note how the sapphire glass has already shattered.

Another protective glass that’s made waves in recent years is Ceramic Shield, appearing on iPhones from the iPhone 12 series onwards. However, this isn’t the product of Apple or some upstart company, as it’s made by Gorilla Glass maker Corning too.

Ceramic Shield undergoes a high-temperature process to add ceramic nanocrystals. This process should result in better protection against cracks and chips. The latest generation Ceramic Shield is available on the iPhone 16 series and is supposed to be 50% tougher than the original Ceramic Shield on the iPhone 12 range.

Apple claimed the new Ceramic Shield seen on the iPhone 16 series is two times tougher than any other smartphone glass. Corning has since released Gorilla Armor 2, so we’re not sure whether that claim is still true.

In fact, Corning itself hasn’t really made any specific comparisons between Ceramic Shield and its Gorilla Glass or Gorilla Armor line of products.  So it’s hard to draw any definitive conclusions about which one is better.

Nevertheless, a JerryRigEverything video shows that the iPhone 16 screen starts gets deep scratches or grooves at level seven on the Mohs hardness scale. This suggests that Gorilla Armor 2 seen on the S25 Ultra does offer better scratch resistance.

It looks like Gorilla Armor and Gorilla Armor 2 both offer improved scratch resistance over Dragontrail Glass and older versions of Gorilla Glass. It’s unclear how the new Corning products compare to the hardy Sapphire glass in terms of scratches, but the latter typically has a high price. Nevertheless, Dragontrail Glass and older Gorilla Glass solutions are on a broadly similar footing.

In bending and impact tests things get much murkier. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of like-for-like testing between Gorilla Glass and Dragontrail solutions. Only one thing is for sure: sapphire is comparatively horrible for flexing and dropping.

Gorilla Glass Victus 2, Gorilla Armor, and Gorilla Armor 2 all seem to offer great drop resistance, with more recent Corning solutions taking concrete into account as well. AGC doesn’t have much to say when it comes to drop testing, which isn’t a great sign.

Corning and Apple tout Ceramic Shield as one of the better protective glass solutions on the market. However, the lack of direct comparisons makes it difficult to verify these claims. Unlike the Gorilla Armor line, the two companies haven’t mentioned any anti-reflective properties for Ceramic Shield, either.