Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I'm not sure ereader displays are significantly more fragile than tablet displays and since ereaders are a lot lighter they're probably less prone to breaking the display if it's dropped.
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By nature of their display construction and the low resistance to torsion of the chassis, ereaders are far less robust than tablets.
The E Ink display is both thin and part of that is its fluid like contents, it is naturally both fragile and weak in torsion. A tablet will have a thick glass panel and that panel is strong enough to provide both good torsional stiffness (try twisting an ereader carefully!, and then a tablet roughly) and resistance to impact. The glass panel accounts for much of the weight difference.
Quite a number of tablets also use Corning's Gorilla glass for their panels (the widely used Samsung Tab A, is just one example) and evidence of its resistance to damage from scratching or dropping can be seen in the many online videos of destructive tests of phones using the same glass.
In dropping I suspect that a heavy tablet may be more prone to cosmetic damage to the panel surround but way less prone to display damage. Maybe there are some drop test comparison videos around, I have not looked?