After numerous attempts by online users and technology pundits to bring the screen to its knees, dropping it on concrete, throwing it from bridges and even whacking it with a baseball bat, the screen has indeed proved shatterproof.

The new design is one of the toughest screens out there and could become a revolutionary development in smart phone designs and a highly demanded feature by many due to the inevitable tendency of dropping, cracking and breaking our smart phone screens. The appeal of the new design was rightly illustrated with a drop test video in which Motorola put to shame its competitors, in particular the iPhone. Whereas the Droid survives without a scratch upon the unexpected encounter with a concrete floor, the iPhone shatters in a slow motion myriad of glass pieces.

The development highlights the small, often unnoticeable, yet vital contribution aluminium brings to the fast developing smartphone industry and heralds the future role it will serve.

Earlier this year, US scientists unveiled a new aluminium battery that could fully charge a smartphone in just one minute. As well as having a significantly faster charging speed in comparison to the lithium model currently used in most laptops and smart phones, the aluminium battery has also been deemed significantly more safe, less prone to catching fire and environmentally friendly.

If smartphone manufacturers want to stay in the game, its high time they embraced the full array of opportunities and uses aluminium has to offer, and revolutionized the industry to a level unimagined just several years ago.