Tempered glass screen protectors for mobile devices now are getting more and more popular. But how to tell the quality of exact tempered glass screen protectors as a consumer or wholesaler, provided that the market now is flood with many shoddy products? Many people would joke around and say, “Whack it! If it shatters into tiny, bite-size pieces, then it’s definitely tempered.” Yes, we can identify its quality by breaking it to some extent. But to learn more, we need more details.
-What’s tempered glass?
First of all, we need to understand what tempered glass is exactly? What makes it different from standard glass? Standard glass is usually annealed by heating it and cooling it slowly to make it less breakable, while tempered glass is manufactured by reheating annealed glass to a temperature of about 1200 degree Fahrenheit, then quickly cooling it to a temperature of around 400 to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, they come in a different structure due to different manufactured processes.
One of the main characteristics of tempered glass is that it breaks differently from standard glass. Whereas normally, glass would shatters into large, dangerous shards, tempered glass fractures into small bite-sized pieces with much less ability to inflict personal injury.
-How to test tempered glass screen protector?
We’re not able to examine an exact tempered glass screen protector as experts with professional equipment. Yet we can still test it with some practical and feasible ways without investing more.
-Break it to test its toughness.
As aforementioned substantial difference of tempered glass from standard glass, the first way is to break it. The smaller bite-sized pieces it breaks into, the better toughness (tempered effect) it performs. Double up the protector and bend it with a bit strength (remember the glue-side toward your palm).
As the pictures show, high alumium glass screen protector breaks into much smaller bite-sized pieces than medium alumium glass and general glass screen protector.
The toughness of tempered glass mainly depends on two factors: raw materials and tempered duration. Normally, it’s generally divided into three classifications of raw materials: general glass, medium aluminum glass and high aluminum glass.
Under the same tempered duration, high aluminum glass performs 2 times better toughness than medium aluminum glass, while medium aluminum glass does better than general glass. Unquestionably, the longer it tempered, the tougher it becomes.
– Water drop test.
One of the advertised features of tempered glass screen protector is the anti-fingerprint capabilities. But does your tempered glass screen protector really resistant to fingerprints? To be honestly, while none tempered glass protectors can eliminate fingerprints completely, it can still provide the most resistance to fingerprints or residues. The resistant grading is mainly determined by fingerprint oil. Better fingerprint oil offers better performance on fingerprint-resistance, and it allows you to clean the screen much easier and clearer.
Drop small amounts of water on the surface of tempered glass screen protector and observe the shape of droplets. Generally, the more perfectly round in shape a droplet is, the better fingerprint oil it used.
Good quality fingerprint oil allows perfectly round and full droplet.
Flat and compressed droplets with poor quality fingerprint oil.
Then don’t forget to rock the droplets from side to side. If there’s no tails of the droplets, then the better fingerprint oil it is.
– AB Glue examination
While plastic screen protectors can be absorbed to the phone screen electrostatically, tempered glass screen protectors applied to by a thin layer of flexible double-sided adhesive called AB glue. The quality of AB glue has great influence on exhausting and fitting. A tempered glass screen protector with good AB glue is very easy to install (fits closely, no white edges, and no bubbles, anti-dust).
To identify it, first of all, carefully feel the stickiness of the glue when peel off the tempered glass protector from the bottom support panel. Quintessential stickiness means better AB glue quality. Secondly, good AB glue can absorb micro dust underneath when you apply the protector to the phone screen.
– Examine the Edges
Most of the tempered glass protector is full cover full screen, but there still exists a bit difference-the arc edges. You can observe the edges from both sides. Protector with both inner and outer arc edges fits with the phone screen better than those with only outer arc edges. Also, some tempered glass screen protectors are polished at the edges to be seen as “arc edge” (It fact, they don’t have any arc).
Then, run your fingers along the edges-the arc edges are perfectly smooth while straight edges are often rough. Watch and feel carefully, and you can find the tiny difference.