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Comment by opan | Hacker News Reader

Don't we already have good scratch protection? Cracks from drops seem like the main issue.

So scratching definitely still happens, both on sapphire camera lenses and new scratch-resistant screen technology. I’ve mainly had it happen with concrete. I think concrete sometimes just has some rocks in it that have a very high hardness because I’ve gotten pretty thick scratches in new iPhones when they’ve taken a slide over a rough concrete sidewalk due to a drop while walking.

I've similarly experienced bad scratches whenever my phone and my keys come into contact, hardened steel may still be able to cause scratches?

Your keys are by no means hardened steel. If they are steel at all (most are brass or silver/zinc), they would be mild steel. If they were hardened they would be really difficult to cut. The harder you make a steel the more brittle it gets. Think about what happens when you slam a file with a hammer vs a large nail.

Considering how easy it is to break keys in the lock, I'd say they're definitely more brittle than malleable?

I think that's mostly from mild work-hardening, I haven't experienced that with a brand new key.

What kind of material are your keys and locks made from? Over here nickelsilver or nickel plated hardened steel is common for keys and a combination of brass, steel and titanium for locks.

This should not be possible with any type of modern phone screen. Do you perhaps have a plastic screen cover that is scratched? Or key metal could be deposited on the screen and just need to be scraped off

Depending on your location and lifestyle, your keys and other possessions can easily collect a dusting of tiny sand particles. Quartz in the sand can scratch most types of glass.

No, it's possible on modern phone screens. My Pixel 8 Pro has Victus 2 (AFAIK), which scratched very easily from fingernails alone.

No cover, just straight up gorilla glass victus.

And it's not just key metal deposited on the screen, there are deep grooves cut into it.

I believe you, but there is some other explanation here- it warrants further investigation. You can scrape a regular glass window (about MOHS 6.5) clean with a razor blade (about MOHS 6.0) and it is impossible to scratch it, just from that tiny difference in hardness. I do this all the time, e.g. recently to get paint that my kid painted on the house windows off.

Your brass keys should only be about 3.0, and gorilla glass a 9.0- you should be able to rub keys into brass dust all day long and not mark the screen.

I store my keys right in my pocket with my glass iPhone SE, and it doesn't have a mark on it.

I suppose it is possible you have keys with some weird material or coating, or as another poster suggested- maybe something like an abrasive dust got stuck on your key.

Brass? Who said anything about brass?

Typical keys are made from nickel plated hardened steel and nickelsilver. Considering the shiny coating is long gone and the keys are ferromagnetic, I assume it's the first. The keys are certainly hard enough to scrape my glass ceramic stove.

And reports online say that gorilla glass victus is the mist scratch prone gorilla glass, scratching at or around 6 already :/

I think you may be onto something here. Taking apart old machinery I have often observed that the hardened part of a shaft is worn and has a noticable groove detectable with a fingernail. However the part that rubbed on it is often much, much softer eg a rubber oil seal. My theory is that the much softer material is so soft that microscopic inclusions of something much harder (grit?) are caught in the material and then abrade the harder shaft. Something similar may be occurring in the keys on glass case?

Cutting with a lubricant and grit is super effective. Silicon dioxide, that is sand, is everywhere.

Aren't both the lens and the screen are resilient to steel/metal scratches? I'm not willing to run keys or a knife over a phone on purpose.

And it's a tradeoff. I found out the hard way that newer Pixels have incredibly soft screens to avoid cracks and shattering. Unfortunately, they're so soft that a fingernail (a 2.5 on the Mohs scale) will leave huge gouges quickly. Fortunately, there's third-party covers that use an adhesive that fills in the scratches well.

That's a little hard to believe. There are resin finishes that are hard to scratch by fingernail.

Think about it; you couldn't put a fingernail scratch into a cheap soda glass beer bottle. Why would Google make a phone with glass that could be scratched by a nail, let alone easily? Does that even exist? Perhaps there is some coating on the glass you didn't remove and that's what you're scratching?

I'm sorry if you don't believe it, but it really happens. The "coating" would have to be pretty thick, this gouge was something you could easily feel with your fingertip. I was very careful to not let my keys or anything else get near it, and the gouge (which was essentially the only scratch on the otherwise flawless screen) was exactly where my thumb hits the screen.

My Pixel 4a, meanwhile, was in my pocket all the time and never got a scratch.

I love going to the beach, and find that modern phones still scratch easily with sand.

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