“Is there a visual difference between a watch that uses sapphire versus glass?” Dr. Raymond M. Soneira reports for DisplayMate. “If you were to hold up two identical watches side-by-side, the one with a glass crystal would be about 20 percent brighter than the one with sapphire (due to fundamental principles of optics that reduce its light transmission), so it appears somewhat darker and duller, particularly because the light has to pass through the crystal twice.”
“Minimizing screen reflections is especially important for displays, and sapphire has almost double (191%) the Reflectance of glass,” Soneira reports. “If you are watching a display in total darkness then the screen reflectance doesn’t matter, but it has a surprisingly large effect on every display, even in subdued indoor ambient lighting, and it makes an enormous difference outdoors.”
“We’ll show below how large and how important the reflectance effect is by comparing the display on an Apple Watch that has a Sapphire Crystal to an identical display on an Apple Watch Sport that has Ion-X Glass,” Soneira reports. “The Apple Watch models are perfect for this comparison because they are identical except for their sapphire and glass covers. But they look and perform identically only in the dark…”
Photo of the Apple Watches in 2,000 lux Uniform Ambient Light
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re loving our Apple Watch Sport models and, after over nine weeks of wearing them 16-18 hours per day, including during sports (running, skating, soccer), there’s not a scratch on either the Ion-X Glass display or the 7000 Series aluminum watch case!