Hydrophobic nano-coating – how seriously should we be taking this?

Another year of CES; another demonstration of the holy grail of mobile phones – hydrophobic nano-coating.

The prospect that our mobile phones will one day survive total immersion in water is likely to get the attention of many users. Most have probably either had a “near-miss” in the bathroom, or worse, a fatal dunking at some time. Many users are nervous about using a phone in the rain for fear of it failing, and there are stories of early iPhone users branding their phones as “extremely sensitive to water” and to “beware of typical rain”.

So the announcements at CES by Liquipel, P2i and HzO were greeted with delight. But is it as straightforward as that? Is this really the holy grail, or is there a catch?[Image courtesy of Crackbb.com]