LAPTOPS/COMPUTER SCREENS

New laptops come in squeaky-clean packages, with spotless keyboards, dustless LCD screens and smooth trackpad. After years of use, however, you would notice your keyboard getting shadows from all even small food particles wedged in between the rough finish. The LCD screen and trackpad might even be oily because of contact with your fingers. While some laptops retail their like-new surfaces through years of use (like my old ThinkPad and my PowerBook Pismo, which are black), most non-black laptops show signs of use after just a few months. What’s a laptop user to do, then? There are several cleaners out there. Some are water-based. Some are alcohol-based. I’ve tried alcohol, but it can sometimes be abrasive. Glass cleaners can work, too, when diluted. Heck even vinegar solution would do well with sticky trackpads (it’s acidic, after all). Try your local photo hobbyist shop. Maybe they have oil-removing lens cleaners that can help.   iBooks and PowerBooks seem to develop a “shadow” of the keyboard on the LCD over time, which won’t come off with window cleaners such as Windex. With my iBook, it was bad enough that using the thing in direct sunlight was sometimes difficult.

On a whim, I recently tried a lens cleaner called ROR (Residual Oil Remover) that I picked up from my local camera store and it took the shadow off completely. My guess is the shadow is really just finger oils from the keyboard or something. – Low End Mac User

ROR removes oil residue on a microscopic level, yet is not abrasive to glass or other surfaces. Better give it a try. Until now, lens cleaners have been for the most part, simply silicone, alcohol

or glycerin based products. Instead of removing the embedded pollution from the pores and surface of a lens, they coated it, thereby defeating the original intention. ROR has redefined the science of lens care by utilizing a formula of natural ingredients that finally removes the counterproductive, ineradicable microscopic oil residues from the surface and pores of glass and plastic.

– J. Angelo Racoma, Tips, Living With

Tags: computer screen