Huawei will release Ascend P7 with sapphire screen next month

Huawei will release a version of its Android smartphone Ascend P7 next month with a sapphire screen instead of reinforced glass. The device comes in limited edition. It is the second smartphone in a short time to have a sapphire screen.

The first device with a sapphire screen that appeared this summer is the Kyocera Brigadier, a sturdy smartphone for the American market. Earlier, the maker of luxury smartphones Vertu already came with a smartphone that has a sapphire screen, but this costs many thousands of euros. Huawei will initially only release its variant of the Ascend P7 with sapphire screen in China, the manufacturer confirms to Engadget.

The first batch will arrive in September, with a second in November. Artificial sapphire is a material that is more scratch resistant than current variants of Gorilla Glass, although it is unknown whether the material is less likely to break than glass when dropped; the latter is the cause of many defects in smartphones.

Apple already uses sapphire for the home button and camera lens of the iPhone 5s. It is rumored that the successor to the iPhone 5s and Apple’s smartwatch would both also get a display made of sapphire, although those rumors are not unequivocal: production of sapphire is not yet enough to provide all iPhones with sapphire this fall.

According to an earlier Engadget story, manufacturer spokesmen claim that sapphire becomes brittle when placed on larger screens, causing it to break if dropped. In addition, it is in itself less transparent than glass, so that the readability of the screen would deteriorate. Finally, it is more expensive to make, so according to many manufacturers the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages.