One Of Apple's Suppliers Just Unveiled A Super Durable Sapphire Phone That's Much Cheaper Than The iPhone
Now, in a strange twist, one of Apple's suppliers in China has actually just unveiled a phone with a super durable sapphire display - and it only costs about $160, which is a fraction of what the iPhone 6 costs without a carrier contract.
Manufacturer Desay's new Magical Mirror X5 phone comes with a 5-inch sapphire screen, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. It's available for preorder today.
Even though the phone is relatively cheap compared to most high-end smartphones, its hardware seems to be on-par with what you'd get from a flagship Samsung or Apple device.
The Magical Mirror X5 features a 13-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel front camera, which is actually a higher resolution camera compared to the 1.2-megapixel front camera on Apple's newest phone.
There's a quad-core processor on the inside, which essentially means it can juggle multiple tasks just as smoothly as other devices that are priced much higher. At 6.95mm thin, it's just a hair thicker than the 6.9-mm iPhone 6.
Sapphire is the second hardest material in the world next to diamond, which means the Magical Mirror X5's display should be almost entirely resistant to scratches.
YouTube personality Marques Brownlee posted a video back in July that claimed to show a flexible sapphire dummy screen Apple had been testing for the iPhone 6. During the video, he stabbed the screen with a knife and tried to scratch it with keys, and the display held up without taking any damage.
In a video posted to Chinese video site YouKu, the Magical Mirror X5 is also seen being scratched with knives and keys.
The truth about sapphire, however, is that it's not entirely indestructible. Since sapphire is more brittle than glass, it could be more susceptible to cracks, according to display expert Raymond Soneira.
There are a few reasons Apple probably didn't use sapphire for the iPhone 6. As analyst Tim Bajarin pointed out in Time magazine last September, it's much more expensive and bulkier than glass.
Desay isn't the only company to make a sapphire screen phone. Keyocera, which is known for its rugged devices, released its Brigadier phone for Verizon late last year, which has a 4.5-inch sapphire screen.