Episode: 3951
Title: HPR3951: Cell Phone Screen Protectors
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3951/hpr3951.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 17:51:01

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3951 from Monday the 25th of September 2023.
Today's show is entitled, Cell Phone Screen Protectors.
It is hosted by Operator and is about 29 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is I talk about how I fail at cell phone screen protectors.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host operator.
Today we're doing replacing screen protectors and we're going to talk about screen protectors.
So if you don't care about screen protectors and you know how to put them on perfectly
without flawless, without a single spec of test, then move on.
Other than that, I took a quick skin through and see if you can learn something.
So the ones I like are AM film.
I'm looking at a stack of, I don't know, probably 10 screen protectors.
I go through them, my wife goes through them, and then we got some for the switch,
which is the OLED one, but it's a regular old-style plastic, but so the problem with these
right is getting them on there and perfecting the application without getting any dust at
all.
So we'll start off right out the bat with my list.
I actually have a list of stuff that I like to have before I do this.
You want an area that's not dusty, you know, no cloth areas.
You want to flats, you know, basically a pristine surface.
I'm using a wooded, a Murphy table that I made out of, like a little folding thing.
It's a high Murphy table, so you can, it's in my office and you pull it up and it locks
in and it sticks out probably three feet and I have a working tech bench that I don't
have to hunch over and I can use these goggles and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm not going to use the goggles or the magnifying thing, but we'll talk about the
later.
So the list.
Like on new screens, obviously, I like the, like I said, AM film, if there's another
one that's like an orange brand, let's see, Super Shields, I don't know.
Sometimes you just get unlucky, so you put them on and then three days later you crack
them.
So, you know, just, just be aware that, you know, there's, there's brands out there that
are probably not as good.
There's ratings, like at S9 or E9 or something like that.
They have ratings and you want the one that's like E9, H9H, which I don't know if it's
much of who anyways.
So on new screens, a plastic pry tool, you can buy a pry tool set, a lot of them are like
you fix it.
This one's just sell-o.
I like the, the, the, the kit that it came with with different kinds and I've collected
ones from other, you know, you order something like a, you know, dash camera or something and
they'll come with pry tools to use for the car.
So I have various pry tools in such different sizes, but if you, if you take stuff apart,
get yourself some pry tools.
Really, the eye opening one for me was this one that's a stepped pry tool and it will
step as you shove it in the device, it will step and get caught in there and that's what
you want because for the screwdriver or some other foreign object, you stick it in there
and it wants to pop right back out.
This is step-based, so once you do get that foothold, it'll stay locked in there and
you can continue to kind of shove around and, and work on it.
You know, it's, it's a skill set that is, is acquired over time.
I'm actually pretty good at it, you just take your time, you can't be at a rush for
that stuff.
Does pretend like you have nothing else to do, it's like getting a child to our seat,
right?
Pretend you have nothing else to do except for to slowly take apart this clam shell of
glue, got awfulness.
So anyways, I want to pry tool, Windex, I, you know, people, swear against it, swear
for it in either direction.
I use it because you need something on there besides water or ice probable alcohol sometimes.
It's just easier.
We're not going to pretend like we're near it.
By the time your screen is whatever, you're going to need a new phone anyway, so who cares?
Gloves, like a rubber gloves, I use, so blue gloves, TV, paper towels, microfiber, weight.
I have a 10 pound weight here, we'll talk about that later.
It's going to air to blow off the dust, that's the most important, like a can of air or
even compressed air, but the can of air, it's going to be more clean in theory, like
magnifying glasses.
I've been looking at dental, dental loops, they're very expensive, but I'm trying to find one
that will be slower profile than this big old, like, you know, when you see the guys in
the movies, they're soldering stuff and they had the big old dumb goggles that look like
with dork things, I'm trying to find something that's lower profile than that that I can get
my head around, because if I'm trying to get my head around inside of something, these
little visors, these little magnifying visors, they don't work, so if you have any ideas
or suggestions on, you know, magnification stuff, but I have been looking at dental, dental
loops for that stuff.
I spoke to alcohol, I'm actually almost out after having the same bottle for probably
10 years, I don't even have to see a date on here, but this is old, this has got to be
of these 10, 15 years old, MG chemicals used there, wow, the lid is actually coming
apart, so this doesn't even actually hold liquid anywhere.
The MG chemicals, I use their contact cleaner, gold, great for connections, battery connections,
channels, ports, anything, metal, the metal, you start noticing issues, spray spray, wait
a minute, don't get it on LCDs or anything like that, because it might screw them up.
So we got our materials, the biggest thing is I've done this on a surface with cap
for on it, 1000 more convenient, no, just take your time, if I did a nice clean surface,
we're going to wipe it off here, actually with just, not on some wind decks, just because
I don't want, I don't want dust flying around, right, that's the worst, is having dust flying
around.
There's other stuff on this table, ideally I would want the table completely clear of
stuff, but I have nitrocar up here and I got to, one of those wood puzzle, one of those
wooden, put together things, kind of like the metal, metal earth, but with wood.
So clean the surface off, make sure there's not any dust around, try not to have any dust
around.
I wash your hands real good, I use one glove instead of obviously two.
That way the other hand I can use for grabbing stuff or whatever.
So my clean hand, the dirty hand, the non glove hand never touches anything, but the phone.
So actually I just touched the door handle with my glove hand, which that doesn't matter
because I'm about to wash my hands.
So I washed my glove because I reuse the same glove, reduce, reuse, sorry about the audio
there, but I wash my hands, then I wait and let them dry, then I wash the gloves, obviously
the gloves on, and then I wash my gloves.
So now I have a clean hand that I'm going to try not to get ruined here.
So I've got my clean hand, we're putting, we're taking, my wife got a nice case, let's
see, UB Pro, it's a super, super case, super, super case, super case, drop protection,
multi-blabby, blah, blah.
She dropped her phone on the corner I think and it cracked it or she cracked the screen
again.
I can't say anything, I've had a lot of cracks in my day.
Now this set, the one that I got from MG Glass, whatever these guys are, the G-Glass,
screen protector, the brand, it's green and AM film, the AM film folks sent a jig to put
over the top of the phone to put it in place.
So that actually is good, if not, it's hard, I'd mind doesn't have a jig, some of them
don't have a jig because it's just not going to work, that there's not enough space for
it.
So if you can get one with a jig or if you know it has the jig to come with it, I would
do that, you go by, what I generally do is I go by the camera, I land the camera, the
circle around the camera, the hole they punch through the bang for the camera and the
circle for the camera and the bottom of the phone.
So I will align it as I'm placing it down and like I said, it's an art form, it's going
to take you a while to get there.
I take paper towels and I rip them into little quarter sheets.
So now is when I would normally put on my goggles here and I'm going to have to figure
something out because I can't do this without using these, honestly.
So I'm going to see if I can't rig something up, sorry about the audio here, yes this is
not going to work, I don't know, this might actually work long enough to do it, let's
do this.
I got the weight, I'm going to put the weight here and use it because really all you need
is light shining on the phone as you're putting it down to make sure you're not like
missing anything.
So you need the can of air ready and you need the phone itself.
Now this phone is not gross because it was behind the shield, but I do want to make
sure that there's no, not a single speck of dust on there and the only way to do that
is to have it light on it at all times.
So I'm just going to spray Windex on the paper towel and kind of let it sit on there.
I shut the phone down because black is really the best angle to see any kind of dust or
anything.
So I have a paper towel in between the phone and I just wet that paper towel to give me
some slickness so I can rub up and down and clean it up.
This isn't bad at all, but in general I like to.
So first I do the Windex and the, yes it's not going to work, am I going to be happy?
No it's going to be a happy, I need a better setup than this.
I actually took apart a spotlight that I might go grab that is extremely bright and I
use it for scenarios where I need lots of light and I don't have to worry about fulzing
around with headlamps and whatever.
So I grease it up no matter what, put a ton of Windex on here and you know we're not
supposed to use Windex on it's just like this, but you know like I said by the time you
damage the screen you either cracked it or you got a new phone anyway so I mean we're
talking about like super long term type stuff.
So I'll hit it up with the Windex first to clean off grease basically to get the smearing
off.
I don't see any smearing, now it's just dust so that's where the ice purple alcohol comes
in.
I've gone through three or four of these little paper towels already, but it's quick once
you get it down, it's pretty much just can of air and cycle and I just dropped my paper
towel on the floor, now I have a cat and a wife and it is now compromised so pretty much
if you're in you know an area where you got pets or hair or dust, I mean I already see
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, it's probably 20 specs of dust on here and I just turned
around for a second.
So just the fact that you know I'm breathing and stuff is falling in the air right, way
too much alcohol on here, so now I need another dry one and I'm almost out.
But it's a little tiny square so I don't feel bad about going through them because I've
only gone through like two paper towels.
Now you can clean the rest of the phone later but I would clean it all now because as soon
as you grab a tiny little spec of dust or worse a spot of grease you are completely screwed
that's it you're done.
So our surface is good, we've done our ice purple alcohol, we've done our index, our
little layer of windex has dried up because it evaporates, I would say use water but
I don't know how many in here so I'm going to grab some water from the cap of this thing.
Now I just touched the door which I'm not super concerned about but just in case I want
to wash my hands again because the door is covered in disgustingness, grease, people,
fickle matter, fickle content as they say in the business.
You know the guys that take apart hard drives and stuff they sit in these sterile rooms
where you know not a single spec of dust enters the atmosphere so I've got my little cap
of water which is basically gone now so I'll probably use some index, I'm using my palm
to close the door and we're going to see if we can get that to stick on there better.
So microfiber they come with a crap ton of microfiber, if you can use a new one every
time I never remember which one is the used and which ones I haven't so I'm a bit of a
mess when it comes to that but if you can remember but it's a same direction so you swipe
in that same direction to get off all those greasy spots and streaks and if you pick
up a piece of grease you end up kind of smearing it around and that's when you have to go
back to the index if it's that bad.
This is not bad, I just have lots of dust and like I said if you sweep in the same direction
you'll get that dust to kind of all go one direction, hopefully.
So like this microfiber cloth has dust all over it, it's just covered in dust and it's
been sitting inside of a plastic bag inside of a container for four months or something.
Now most of them come with these stickers and you can pull the dust off the stickers and
it says glide, guide sticker, I don't even know how you're supposed to use this, maybe
to help you put the glass on correctly and then they have a dust absorber which is just
whatever, I've never even used these before.
But you know it's basically a sticker that gets the dust off with now, you can do that
forever or you get your can of air, now I'm going to ready my S5A screen here, obviously
you want to figure out the direction that it's supposed to come apart in and keep it
face down.
Don't even worry about the top, it's pretty much more or less sterile, don't worry about
cleaning the top, you do want to make sure you don't have any grease on it when you go
to put it on, so touch it with your glove hand, right?
Just remember to touch everything you can with your glove hand and nothing, the phone
with your right, if you want to have to touch the phone you want to hold on the outside
with your dirty hands.
So traditionally we're at the spot now where I'll start using the can of air to make sure
that I can blow off anything I don't need, or anything I don't want.
So I kind of spray all around to kick off all the dust to get it away from the phone
and then I do this little weird game where why is who ate that, did somebody eat that?
I'm looking at the end of my, oh, the end of my nozzle has hair on it, you even know
what that is, it's something, oh I have oil, I had a oil, a clock oil leak in my container
and now there's clock oil on the bottom of everything and now there's goopy on the bottom
so any of the little tubes, anything that's down there on the bottom gets a nice dose of
oil all over it so.
Now I see a little something, I don't know what this is, I see some streaking from left
to right from the, I guess, Windex, but multiple angles you want to look at it for multiple
angles and see, because you want angle, you don't see nothing and from another angle I'll
see all these weird looking streaks that look like they might be from the Windex.
So some previous streaks in there and honestly the whole lake, do your lazy, do the whole
mouth thing just like that actually works man, don't ask me how or why but you would think
there would be all kinds of extra goop in your breath that would make it compromise it but
if you don't at the time, or the resources to do it correctly, so I'm basically using
the can of air at point blank range to blow off any speck of dust, I see a little thing
here and I'm trying to verify if it's a scratch or if it's just a piece of stubborn, whatever.
So once you see a scratch or something, this is a scratch that you got dropped or something
or the screen got replaced and when the screen got replaced, they out the piece of dust
behind the screen.
So I would, I'll say that that's not my fault, that looks on top so that looks like that
got scratched somehow, honestly, it's a micro scratch, very small, must have been while
she was waiting to get her case and I told her not to do that, but you know, you know
people listen to us in our field.
Alright, so I've got most of this cleaned up, I'm hitting it with the can of air and the
light at multiple angles, I still have that little scratch guy which I don't know what
he is, he's definitely on the outside but it's not coming off so I guess we're screwed.
One little section in the lower corner here that doesn't want to comply and again I've
got some kind of little something, I'm using the glove to kind of scrub and that is also
a scratch, two scratches actually, just tiny little dents almost like it was dropped or something.
So we got like three on this phone and it's never been without a case, it's never been
without a case or without a screen protector and it's still whatever.
Some people swear against the screen protectors, that's another thing, I'm actually going
to turn this sideways, I have it their own direction, if you have it sideways you can
see more of the phone, right, I just touched it but I think you're damn it.
So as hard as you can, as hard as you try, you still have issues, but yeah I keep it sideways
so I can see up and down easier and I don't have to ranch over to get to the rest of it.
So I mean I see a couple of spots and that's pretty much it man, you just gotta hold
you, whatever you got, it's great or whatever you want to pray to, this jig, I don't really
want to put the jig on but I will because whatever, oh this is the wrong, this is one for
mine actually, this is for I think my wife's old one, so that won't even work, so we
get to do this live.
So I line up the camera circle and then I line up the bottom, so like what will happen
is the camera will be on point but then the bottom will be shifted, left or right or whatever,
off center, so that you gotta watch out for that and you're basically just kind of for
a while, you're just blowing off whatever dust lands on, because basically you're trying
to keep the environment completely clean of anything, you're just constantly spraying
until you know you just, I have not taken the film off the bottom yet but I'm hovering
it over the top, you know, protect, to protect the film.
So the idea here is that, you know, whatever is falling from the sky or falling off in
my head or whatever is not going to fall and this will be a theory, a kind of a sterile
area, and it's like ripping off a band-aid man, you just gotta go, throw it on there,
there's one little spot here, now this can't air as I get actually getting cold, so pulling
the bottom off, praying, sticker stuck to my finger for a second, right now I can't
really see the camera port that well, but kind of once you drop it, you can shift it
ever so slightly, I feel like we're in a good spot, but once you drop it you're done,
that's it, now if there's something under there, guess what, you just put, take it off,
start all over, if you want to do it right, get to get off, start all over, I did not
push from the inside out, I was more concerned on this one about making sure it landed flat,
but this is where you're, whatever tools in, it's a pointy piece of plastic, and then
I push, this is actually the pointy, it's not what I want, I want the flat, this little
flat piece about a inch wide, flat pry tool, and I just go from the inside out, look for
those bubbles, I see zero bubbles, usually on one side or the other, you'll get, it won't
glue, it won't connect right, I'm a little off left to right, up and down is perfect,
but left to right is a little bit off, but the camera is on point, the camera is straight
in the middle, so actually I don't know why this looks like it's off by a, I guess it's
almost perfect, so the deal breakers, you know, you get it all put together and you clean
it up, and then you look at it, and it's got a cat for a piece of cat for, I did it on
the dining room table once, and that's when I, that was the last time I ever did it on
the dining room table, because, you know, he's been all this time, and you put it up there,
and then, you know, you put it in, you give it to your wife, she's like, what's this?
That wasn't there 10 seconds ago, before I put it on here, so, we have something, I don't
know what that is, that looks like it's under, there's one little tiny speck of something
under, that's also another tiny speck of something under, but we're not talking hairs,
hair is what will break, will break you, and you can do a tiny little speck, and honestly,
my wife won't care, she won't know, I won't hurt her, but yeah, there's a piece of hair
right there, a little tiny, probably millimeter piece of hair, but it's not a giant piece of hair,
not even a millimeter, it's, I see a bubble, we might be fucked on this one,
there's a piece of dust in here, big enough till two pieces, wow, this one's done,
I'll probably have to redo this with that set on, so that I can see anything before I put it on,
yeah, we got one piece of hair that's so thin that it doesn't care, and then we have a piece
of dust that's lifted up down here, that's a piece of hair, and another piece of dust that's
lifted up, I have, let's see, I have one, two, three of these, and my wife tends to hold onto
phones, so I might, I might count my blessings with this one, and see if I can get it to stick,
so when you're done, that's the easy part is over, or the hard parts over, when you're done,
I take a 10 pound weight, and I put it on top of the little piece of foam that came with
the particular screen protector foam, and I lay a 10 pound weight on top of it, and I let it sit,
and hopefully that pressure will kind of glue it to the thing, and it won't lift up, but
if I come back in 10 minutes, and it is still raised where the piece of, there's one piece of
dust on here that's pretty big, and it's raising, it's disconnecting the screen protector from the
thing, so it's like this goo, it's like a really thick adhesive, and that thick adhesive wraps
around any dust particles that are merged in the surface, because it's never going to be 100%
perfect, I've had like two, three perfect ones out of the 10 I put on, and it's just luck,
I mean honestly, unless you're in a clean room with some kind, it's just luck, I feel like,
I don't know, I just had the air conditioner on in here to keep it cold before I recorded,
so it might be just the air blowing around in here, or me talking, who knows, but oh well,
anyways, that's not great, I say on a scale of 1 to 10, that's a solid 7, 8, 7, usually I like to have
no dust on it at all, and you know, it just depends, for my wife it doesn't matter for myself,
it depends on how big it is, as long as it's not all lifting up off, the, you know, disconnecting
it essentially, and causing a visual disturbance, I will let it go, but I feel like this is just not
going to, it might not, you know, I not pass, and you know, sometimes you got to do two or three,
I mean, I think we're okay, it's, I think it'll stick, it'll stay, I'll let it marinate for a while,
and it's flat right now, there's no bubbles, but there's one piece of dust on here, I don't like,
and a tiny little hair that you can't even see without a light, two, three, three, I don't even know
what that is, that's like carpet fuzz or something, I don't even know what that is, it's a very thin,
it's almost like carpet fuzz, so anyways, hope that helps somebody out, let me know, my headset just died,
but, you know, once been twice shy, any tips, any ideas, and especially the, any kind of
low profile magnifier thing that I can wear, would be great on any tips, like the, the dental,
hoop, or dental loops, anyways, you'll take it easy, have a good one, stay safe.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio, as Hacker Public Radio does work.
Today's show was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself, if you ever thought of recording
or cast, and click on our contribute link to find out how easy it means. Hosting for HBR has been
kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the internet archive, and our sings.net. On the Sadois
status, today's show is released on their creative commons, attribution, 4.0 international license.