The Richter Scale^®

At last month’s CES show, I had an opportunity to obtain samples of two products to help us mere mortals keep our notebook computer, smart phone, and PDA displays clean and crisp, without all those finger print smudges. Those products were Bart 1 Products’ “Peel & Clean” and Monster Cable’s Travel-Size ScreenClean.

The products serve a similar function in keep LCD screens clean, but Peel & Clean provides an additional function, namely cleaning the keyboard of the respective device. Peel & Clean works via a foam pad with adhesive on both sides. You peel a non-stick liner off one side, apply it to the keyboard of the notebook computer, peel the liner off the other side, and then close the notebook. And while not in the written instructions, Bart 1’s owner, Paulette Bartone (hence the name of the company), showed me that you could turn your notebook upside down, tap on the bottom to loosen any food, dirt, crumbs, hair, etc. that was in the keyboard so that it too would get stuck to the adhesive and be removed. The adhesive coating is supposed to remove all debris from the keys of the keyboard and the display. Once you open up the notebook, you remove it, and if your adhesive pad is not too dirty, you can reapply the liners and use it again at a later date (or on another notebook).

I followed the instructions, and while it removed all the dirt I could see, the results were not nearly as spectular as during the demo at CES (which featured a really grubby keyboard). But then again, I tend not to eat above my notebook keyboard. It should be noted that at least in the cases I have observed, the predominant cause of messy notebook screens is when human body oils left by fingers on the keyboard are transferred to the display when the lid is closed. The idea behind Peel & Clean is to reduce or even remove those oil/dirt deposits, but they go a step further and also provide this great “non-adhesive daily liner”, which provides both cushioning of the display, and a barrier separating the keyboard and display when the screen is down. For me, that’s probably the best feature of the Peel & Clean product.

Also provided is a “Smudgy” cloth intended to allow you to clean and buff your LCD display, but I found in my case it actually smeared the smudges on my screen more than it cleaned them.

Enter Monster’s ScreenClean product. It includes a LCD/display safe spray (doesn’t contain any alcohol either) which stays where you spray it, and you then use the included non-abrasive MicroFiber cloth to clean the display onto which one previously sprayed the ScreenClean fluid. And I must say it works great - better than any other screen cleaner I have ever tried on my LCD. No streaking, no staining, very fast to use and clean with. And it is also available in a big size for use on large screen TVs.

I liked the idea behind the Peel & Clean product, but perhaps because I am reasonably fastidious, my notebook doesn’t seem to get dirty enough to benefit from the cleaning power of the adhesive sheets. But the protective liner alone is probably worth the price of the product. As such I give Bart 1’s Peel & Clean a 6.5 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale. Peel & Clean for Laptops is $15.99 and for PDAs and smart phones it’s $8.99, ordered directly from Bart 1 Products.

Monster Cable has a reputation for solid, but expensive products, but Monster ScreenClean in the travel size is $17.33 from Amazon.com, and even less from a few other outline outlets I looked at. That’s the cheapest Monster product I am aware of. However that may be, it does an excellent job on my number one notebook dirt problem, which is a dirty screen (and my Sony VAIOs use highly reflective XBrite displays, so fingerprints can be very noticeable). I give Monster Cable’s Travel Size ScreenClean a very rare 10.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale. What pushed it to the top is that the Travel Size is 1.52 fl. oz., and non-flammable and can therefore even be taken in one’s airplane carry-on (even as part of the TSA’s 3-1-1 requirements for liquids), so you really can travel with it.