Last month, I became fed up with the increasingly disgusting state of my LCD screens. Both my laptop and my two LCD desktop panels at work were just rife with dust, lint, and macroscopic unmentionables. Just gross.
So, I thought I'd grab a screen cleaner and wipe them off. Turns out that's not as easy as one might imagine. Most everyday cleaners you find in grocery stores have alcohol, ammonia and/or other chemicals in them that do not play nicely with the plastics and coatings involved in LCD and other portable electronic displays.
So, I did what any conscientious tech blogger would do: I ordered three of the more commonly recommended cleaners to do a comparison test. KlearScreen, Purosol, and Mirachem Optix were all purchased from online retailer Photodon (who provided no monetary or other support for this test other than selling me all the cleaners at their standard price). I also purchased a bottle of the Photodon house brand LCD cleaner just to see how it stacked up. I also bought a brand new microfiber cloth to use in the testing.
Read on for details on the four candidates and the results of my month-long test for performance, endurance, and overall value.
First, the test environment consisted of two 20" LCD panels I use at work, as shown below. I broke up each screen into two halves (for a total of four areas, one for each cleaner). Each half-screen was then broken up into a black area and a rainbow area for visual inspection of dust and grime removal.
These had not been cleaned in any way since they were purchased new nearly a year ago. So, they were absolutely filthy, as the screen shot below attests.
To test the cleaners, I sprayed each on one half of one of the two displays and wiped it clean with the microfiber cloth. Some had better spray patterns or cleaned more easily than others, as the results table below describes. Each week for a month after cleaning the displays, I examined the four quadrants for lint and other detritus that had accumulated in the cleaned areas. My findings from that long-term examination are also described in the results table.
Results
| Cleaner | Price Paid | Spray/Smell | Initial Cleaning | Long-term Cleaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KlearScreen (8 oz.) Recommended! | $12.95 | Fine mist, wide pattern; mild, but distinctive, smell (not unpleasant) | Very good | More than a week dust-free |
| Mirachem Optix (4 oz.) | $5.55 | Generous and uneven, less misty and more droplets; faint smell | Very good | New dust attracted nearly immediately (by day's end) |
| Photodon's Ultra (4 oz.) | $7.95 | Fine mist, smaller pattern (more targeted); very faint smell, nearly odorless | Very good | More than a week dust-free |
| Purosol Plasma (4 oz.) | $16.95 | Ultrafine mist, wide pattern; almost odorless | Very good | More than a week dust-free |
Recommendations
All four sprays cleaned quite well; the displays looked nearly new after a good wiping-down and no differences across the four quadrants were noticeable immediately after cleaning. However, the Mirachem Optix product did not seem to prevent static-attracted dust as well as the others and its quadrant had noticeable dust within a few hours of being cleaned. For that reason, and the rather unsatisfactory spray nozzel, I would not recommend Mirachem Optix (despite it having the lowest price of just $1.44 per ounce).
The three other sprays all kept their parts of the displays clean about the same length, with noticeable dust appearing a little more than a week after being cleaned. Given no differences in cleaning performance, the decision comes down to price. However, the pricing on these cleaners ranges broadly, from a low of $1.62 per ounce for the KlearScreen to $4.24 per ounce for the Purosol (the Photodon's Ultra came in at $1.99 per ounce).
So, as it offers a very good cleaning solution at a reasonable price, my recommendation is the KlearScreen LCD-Laptop-Computer Screen Cleaner. More information can be found at www.klearscreen.com.
Based on the results just described, I also used KlearScreen on my laptop and phone and both devices' screens were cleaned quite satisfactorily. While I cannot judge the long-term effects of using any of these products on LCD screens, their manufacturers state that no chemicals in any of them should have any deleterious effects whatsoever.
Note that no free samples were used or communication with companies manufacturing or selling these sprays (other than making an online purchase with Photodon) occurred during the testing and writing-up of results. GearBits has no financial association with any of these products or their manufacturers or distributors.
wow...i didnt even know there were that many screen cleaners out there. klearscreen also makes the stuff they sell at apple stores...iclean or something like that...so its gotta be good right? thanks for posting this.
Today, I received an email from a guy at Mirachem, maker of the Optix product tested above. Here's what he said:
Photodon Ultra is available in 1/2-gallon sizes AND 5-gallon, lowering its cost-per-ounce to just over $.88 ehrn purchased in the 1/2-gallon size. Plus you get a 4 oz. sprayer free! Okay, 5-gallons breaks down to (just over) $.80 per oz., and you get 6 - 4oz sprayers free.
So buy bulk and use Photodon Ultra.