Today in front of us we have a phone with what claims to be a sapphire screen. This
is a Duraforce Ultra 5G. Sapphire screens are incredibly rare and incredible scratch
resistant, with a hardness level right up there next to diamonds. So if it's true and
this phone does indeed have a sapphire display, it means it's one of the most durable and
protected phones right out of the box on the planet. It should be very interesting because
protection is a good thing – both physically and online. Huge thanks to Bitdefender for
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Protection is a good thing, and it's always better to have it before you need it, so I'll
leave that link down below.
People who are a fan of protection are probably going to really love this sapphire covered
phone, if it really is indeed covered by sapphire. There's only one way to find out for sure.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
The Duraforce Ultra 5G with a sapphire shield is made by Kyocera. Kyocera's one of the OG's
making rugged phones for the last 20 years. We've only seen a few sapphire screen smartphones
in the past, notably, the HTC U Ultra Sapphire Edition and Kyocera's older sibling, the Duraforce
Pro 2 released back in 2018. And, of course, Apple has tried making a sapphire watch and
sapphire camera lenses, but their sapphire is more of a marketing than reality situation.
This Ultra is definitely a rugged beefy looking phone, with kind of a builtin protective armor,
thicker than even my own smartphone inside of dbrand's grip case. It's a tank, which
is what we would expect from a phone that wants to be the world's most durable. Kyocera
claims that this is ultra rugged, which means that it's even more rugged than regular rugged,
and a sapphire screen would definitely help take it to the next level.
I have a set of Mohs picks which tell us where different materials fall on Mohs scale of
hardness. Plastic, like Samsung's folding phones, would start scratching at a level
2 or 3. Glass phones, like the majority of smartphones on the market these days, would
scratch at a level 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7. When we get to level 6 and 7,
however, we see no visible markings on the display of the Duraforce Ultra. It still looks
like a brand new phone right out of the box. Incredibly impressive. It's only when we get
to level 8 that we do start seeing scratches, with deeper grooves at a level 9...levels
on the Mohs scale of hardness that would normally just destroy a display. The Duraforce Ultra
5G is indeed made from sapphire crystal, and unscratchable to nearly everything except
diamonds.
Speaking of which, the Mohs scale of hardness isn't the only way to verify sapphire. Here
we have a diamond selector tool that's able to tell the difference between crystals and
noncrystals since they have different thermal properties. For example, my wife's wedding
ring, which I'm borrowing for a minute, registers as a gemstone. And if we test the display
of the Duraforce Ultra, it also registers as a gemstone. But when I go to test the display
of my own smartphone, it does not register as a gemstone since it's just made with tempered
glass and nothing special. Thumbs up for science. I'm definitely not recommending that you propose
with a Duraforce Ultra, but scientifically it's pretty similar to a wedding ring. We'll
talk more about sapphire in a minute. Also, don't let me lose my wife's ring or I'm going
to be in big trouble.
There is an 8 megapixel front facing camera tucked under the sapphire display, along with
a plastic earpiece, and what looks like a large plastic speaker grill down near the
bottom that is solidly attached to the phone. And, of course, we have some very thick textured
plastic sides, and large rubber bumpers on each of the 4 corners. This thing is specifically
designed to withstand 5 foot drops onto concrete. There is a plastic programmable button on
the right side, along with a SIM card tray with expandable memory SD card slot. Then
we have the scratchable power button which is a fingerprint scanner combo. And up top
we have another bright orange programmable button. This is supposed to be used for emergency
SOS calls, but can be set to do other things if you're not living your life on the edge.
And here underneath this watertight flap we find our good buddy, the headphone jack. This
phone has everything.
Going down the left side we have volume buttons, as well as a push to talk walkie talkie button
thing. Then finally, down here at the bottom of the phone underneath another watertight
flap, we get the USB-C charging port. The Duraforce Ultra is IP68 water resistant and
is one of the only manufacturers that I know of that includes water damage in it's 2 year
warranty. Everyone else, like Apple and Samsung, would leave you hanging if your phone gets
wet, but Kyocera is right there with you. Kyocera even has an underwater camera mode.
It's like they're just begging you to get your phone wet.
The gold contacts on the backside are for docking accessories. Then we have the dual
flash, along with a Time of Flight depth camera used for auto focus. In the center we have
the 16 megapixel wide angle camera. And on the right side we have the main 24 megapixel
sensor, all covered by more sapphire. For reference, the lens coverings on my own camera
is just made from glass. Kyocera has spared no expense. You'd have to have a pocket full
of diamonds to scratch up the display or the camera lens. And if you do have a pocket full
of diamonds, I'd want to know why you have a pocket full of diamonds.
One of the reasons sapphire displays are so rare is because of how hard it is to create.
Sapphire is grown in huge furnaces at over 2,000 degrees celsius for over 2 weeks, with
constant helium gas running through the crucible. After it's cooked you get a cylinder called
a boule, which can then be cut into rectangular blocks that are used for cell phone screens
or watches. Instead of drawing it on plastic though, I could just show you. This is a super
heavy pure sapphire brick cut from one of the basketball size boules. It's worth about
$1,000, and obviously smartphone screens are quite a bit thinner than this, so it would
still need to be cut into thin slices...like really expensive cheese that probably doesn't
taste very good. And since sapphire is so hard and scratch resistant, the whole process
is very expensive and very difficult, which is why most manufacturers haven't attempted
it. And some manufacturers, like Apple, just make impure knockoffs.
Cooking crystal at high temperature for weeks is pretty awesome science. Speaking of high
temperatures, the Duraforce Ultra is using a 5.4 inch 1080p IPS liquid crystal display.
The pixels start to go black and turn off after about 30 seconds under the heat from
my lighter, but after the heat is removed they do come back to life and make a full
recovery. Lastly, the fingerprint reader. It's right where I like it – on the power
button. This phone is designed to be used with gloves, but of course, the scanner does
need contact with a bare fingerprint in order to function. If the scanner is ever scratched
up, which would be hard to do considering the phone's shape, it will stop working though.
But that does feel a little nit picky since the rest of the phone can survive near everything...except
maybe a trip through a blender made of diamonds. A bend test even feels unnecessary at this
point since I'd have to drive it over with a tank to cause any real damage. But like
we all could have guessed, there is no flex, kinks, cracks or damage of any kind to the
phone when bent from the back or the front. I could probably just skip testing any more
phones this year since this guy pretty much just won The Most Durable Phone of 2021 award.
It's a pretty amazing device. Nice work, Kyocera. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come
up with next. Do you want sapphire on your next phone? Let me know down in the comments.
I'm going to go give my wife back her ring cuz happy wife, happy life.
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