How to Clean a Laptop Screen
Cleaning a laptop screen is something we’ve all had to do, especially if anyone has children. Little freaks can’t keep their grubby little hands off of anything! I suppose adults are just as bad. We all have that officemate, girlfriend, or roommate who, for whatever reason, deems it necessary to put their oily little fingers on our laptop screens when they feel the need to point at something. “See? See right there?” Yeah, we see it, and you know what else we see? A big fat smudge on our laptop screen right where you jabbed your greasy little finger into it. Now, before you go padlocking your laptop shut, I’ll tell you that cleaning a laptop screen isn’t that difficult or expensive. All you need is a little rubbing alcohol, some Q-tips (if you’re picky), and a soft cotton cloth.
Cleaning a Laptop Screen with Alcohol
Find yourself a soft cotton cloth, some 90-98% isopropyl rubbing alcohol, and a couple of cotton Q-tips. You never want to wipe your laptop screen with anything other than a cotton cloth, because paper products may in fact scratch the protective layers on your laptop’ screen. Rubbing alcohol is the perfect solvent for cleaning electronics. The Q-tips are for getting along those hard to reach edges.
You will want to dilute the rubbing alcohol with water to get a 50/50 solution to clean a laptop screen. Once you’ve done this, dampen your cotton cloth with the solution, making sure it’s not so damp that you can wring the water out of it. Then, with a circular motion, gently wipe the surface of the screen. It’s important that you do not press too hard—this could damage your screen.
To clean the edges of your laptop screen, use a Q-tip dipped in the 1:1 alcohol/water mixture. But before you go after those edges, make sure to roll the Q-tip around the edge of the glass you have the water and rubbing alcohol in, so that you don’t drip water all over your laptop or your laptop screen. While you’re cleaning the edges, rotate the Q-tip while you do it so that the cotton fibers lift out the dirt.
Once you’ve cleaned the edges of your laptop screen, you’ll want to do one more quick rubdown with the cotton cloth, just to make sure you’ve gotten all of the dirt from the edges away from the laptop screen. While you’re at it, why not wipe down the rest of the computer. Rubbing alcohol is great at dissolving oils and grime that are accumulated from the skin on our fingers.
If there’s any excess moisture left on the laptop or the laptop screen, use another soft cotton cloth to soak it up. If you want to let your laptop sit for a little while, I’m sure that couldn’t hurt things. But because alcohol evaporates at such a low temperature, you shouldn’t notice much if any moisture left on your screen. And that is how to clean a laptop screen, the way the professionals do it.
Laptop Monitor Cleaning Wipes and Sprays
There are a number of screen cleaning wipes and specialty screen cleaners on the market today. Some are made with special chemicals designed to wipe away dirt, oil, and other pollutants without scratching the screen. Some wipes are even made of a special microfiber fabric that picks up particles of dust and oil without the use of chemicals. If I were going to choose between the two, I would go with the microfiber screen cleaning wipes. Why? Well, because if you can clean a laptop screen without having to wipe with some sort of chemical solvent on it, then you’re probably extending the life of that laptop screen. Of course, most LCD screens are cleaned and wiped down with an alcohol before they leave the factory, so you can’t be doing too much harm by choosing the cheaper solution. I’ve included some of your options for laptop screen cleaning products on the sidebar. Enjoy.
Natural Laptop Screen Cleaning
Kensington makes a pretty good screen cleaner from what I hear. Not only does it clean your screen, but it protects it (so they claim) with an anti-static barrier that helps keep dust off of your screen. They say it works best with Surface Guardian Lint-Free Wipes, but I imagine you can get away with a cotton cloth.
Office Depot makes their own screen cleaning solution as well, which is nice because Office Depots are never hard to find. Hell, I come from a town of 10,000 people and we have one! This stuff is relatively cheap, too, at $5.99 for a pack of two.
