Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “DON’T buy a Screen Protector before watching this.”.
Carnage: okay, if you’ve ever been shopping for a screen protector, you’ll notice, something really strange about them in that it doesn’t seem to matter how much you spend you can find one for 60 cents. That claims to do the exact same thing as a forty dollar. One like if both of these protectors actually are high endurance, smudge resistant tempered, glass and they’re made for the same phone. Who would ever buy this one, let alone give it a positive rating. So i thought let’s dig a little deeper.
I’Ve got three screen protectors in front of me right now. We’Ve got a one dollar tempered glass, one unbranded. We’Ve got a 40 tempered glass, one from a company called spec, and we’ve got an 80 sapphire screen protector from a company called shelrus and thanks to surfsharkvpn who sponsored this video we’ve also got three brand new iphone 12s to test them on. So the first one.
Doesn’T actually look as bad as you think it does have the words nuke copyright brand french on it, which is mildly concerning, but opening up the box. You realize we’re actually getting two protectors as well as all the other bits you might need. So i grabbed the first iphone opened it all up. I disinfected.
It then just line the protector up and stuck it on boom. Now, for 40 times that price, as you’d expect, you are getting some slightly more reassuring packaging with no alarming spelling mistakes, but you are only getting one here like forty dollars for one sheet of glass, i guess the one saving grace is that if we grab our Iphone what we do also get is this template tool which basically applies the protector for you, and that just leaves us with the 80 watt. It actually says on the back. This is made from 99.99 pure sapphire and that this means it’s supposedly a nine on the hardness scale versus normal glass, which sits at a six. But this is a confusing thing, because that’s exactly what these other two say both of these screen protectors, the one dollar one and the forty dollar one they in no uncertain terms, say that they are also level nine in hardness anyways. We then get out our last iphone and install the sapphire protector. I mean for eighty dollars. You almost expect it to install itself, but i do appreciate these little alignment tools you get in the box.
Okay, just before i started destroying things, i thought right. We’Ve got three completely different tiers of screen protectors. Here, surely there’ll be some sort of massive visual difference, but there isn’t. Ironically, i actually think the one dollar one is quite well designed: it’s got a nice small, single cutout for the earpiece and that’s it no interruptions. The forty dollar one has this funky cutout up top, which i guess is there, so you don’t have unnecessary extra layers of glass on top of your cameras, but it’s not the prettiest and then the 80 one to be fair does look really good. It’S got a similar design to the first one, but with the added benefit of edges that just kind of disappear into the phone you’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing on here. It also possibly feels maybe a tiny bit silkier to the touch, but to be really blunt about it at this stage i wasn’t really sure what i was paying for and if you are enjoying this video, the sub to the channel would be spiffing. It doesn’t look like any of them are restricting brightness and, if anything, actually the cheapest one had applied with the best result, even with the fancy mounting tools of the more expensive protectors, i still got those little internal bubbles that i just couldn’t get rid of.
I even actually tried the sapphire one twice just because i had a backup same result. So at this point, these two expensive ones, they’ve really got something to prove like i’m thinking they better be really strong. For me to even think about saying. Yes, you should spend 40 to 80 times as much on them, so i set up a little testing facility now, from my experience, the quickest way to scratch a phone is to put it right up against another phone, so i grabbed a fourth iphone 12 and used The cameras on the back of it to simulate what would happen to these protectors if you jangle them around in a full pocket and sure enough. The first phone did not like that, but what was kind of surprising, but also, i guess, at the same time, exactly what you might have expected is that the second protector for 40 times the price was just as scuffed up. The third, though, was not in fact after i’d, given it a wipe, there wasn’t a single mark on it, so the sapphire is clearly doing something, but to try and put an exact number on just how strong each of these protectors is. I thought it’s time to get out the hardness picks.
There are a bunch of tools that are each rated from one to nine and basically the higher the number, the greater that pick’s ability to scratch, and you realize very quickly that these first two protectors are lying. So, for example, with this first one, it was fine at level four level five didn’t cause any damage either, but as soon as i got to level six, this was enough to make noticeable scratches like if you look a little closer, i’ve actually drawn the number six On the right using a level six pick, and that seven is what i managed to do with the level seven pick and you wan na know the sad part of this, the forty dollar, one isn’t really any better. It did seem a little bit more resistant.
It was still being scratched at level six. It was still being deeply scratched at level seven, but just slightly less deep than the damage on the one dollar protector. But yeah i mean level. Eight will still rip it apart. So long story short, whatever is being said on the websites and the boxes of these protectors, about them being level 9 in hardness, is pretty disingenuous. It’S almost the limitation of using glass as a material.
At least you know with our current level of tech, the sapphire works, though level 6 did nothing. Level 7 did nothing. It was only at level 8 that i started to see a few very, very faint markings and it took a level 9 pick the hardest one. I own to be able to create a deeper gouge that puts this screen protector just below diamond in terms of hardness.
Now the last thing left to do was a break test. If you dropped your phone is spending more on a screen protector actually going to save it. This is probably the most important question to answer, and so i actually spent a long time thinking about what’s the best way of doing this, because, yes, in an ideal situation, i would drop all three phones from an identical height such that they land in an identical Way on an identical surface, but that’s almost impossible to do and if you do do it that way, then just the tiniest bit of human error, like let’s say holding the phone two centimeters to one side, might completely change the way that it falls. So i decided to start by keeping all the phones flat and hammering them. The first hammer was from a height of 20 centimeters. I pulled back let loose on each one of these screens and pretty much nothing happened.
The only one thing i noticed is that one of the scratches on the 40 glass protector had sort of turned into more of a crack. The other two seemed fine, though so i thought. Okay, let’s do a 40 centimeter hammer test.
I really felt the impact to this one and damage. There was pretty much the same amount of damage on both the first and the second like both phones were still working completely, but the protectors on top were cracked at the point of impact, and at this point i’m genuinely shocked that the sapphire one looks like nothing Had actually happened to it, so i took it one stage further. This last test was really just for a bit of fun, just because i was curious to see what the sapphire could do, so i grabbed the biggest heaviest brick that i could find not that one.
This one nearly dropped it on my feet and proceeded to get out to the first phone. The reason i picked this brick was because it was so flat and heavy that i could make sure it landed on all of them in a consistent way. So this is what happened with the one dollar protector carnage: it’s absolutely destroyed, the entire top left part of the screen is gone and the rest of it might as well be. It looks like it’s been shot and i realized when i picked it up as well as the front. The back of the phone has had an absolute mirror as well any guesses about the second phone.
Well, pretty much an identical result. Yes, the damage is different here. It’S more the bottom of the screen that isn’t turning on and the other parts that are having a seizure, but it’s the same level of damage and so there’s a very obvious takeaway.
Here you don’t need to spend 40 on a screen protector. Yes, you may get fancy packaging. Yes, you may get a tool that helps or, let’s be honest, sometimes hinders the application process fundamentally, either way: you’re buying a sheet of glass and really a sheet of glass that probably cost five cents to make. If that i think a lot of these companies are just taking advantage of the fact that people aren’t willing to take a risk on their shiny new phone they’re.
Very aware that, because you might have just spent a thousand dollars on this device that they can justify charging 40 for something that protects it, but just know that that’s not what it’s worth. Okay, the final thing left to do was to just put our good friend sapphire through the brick test and i’ll be honest with you. I had no idea what to expect.
I think some part of me thought well, it survived everything so far, it’ll probably survive this too well. Actually, it kind of did it’s still pretty beaten up. Don’T get me wrong, but this is the only phone that’s still somewhat fit for purpose. I peeled off all the screen protectors and if you look at all three phones now, this one definitely has what i’d call a tier, less damage done to it, probably still not safe to use, but at least technically usable. So i hope this was useful.
This is not to say that glass screen protectors are bad. I would probably recommend a glass one to 99 to people, but what it is to say is that if you are going to buy a glass one, you don’t need to spend a crazy amount of money on it. But if you just happen to want to spend a crazy amount of money on a screen protector then go for sapphire because it is actually better. Okay, surfsharkvpn probably sound like a broken record at this stage, but there’s one reason why surfshot vpn is the only channel sponsor that i’ve worked with continuously see.
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