This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,951 from Monday 25th of September 23.
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 are doing replacing screen protectors.
We are going to talk about screen protectors.
If you don't care about screen protectors and you know how to put them on perfectly without
a single spec of test, then move on.
Other than that, I took a quick skim through and see if you can learn something.
So the ones I like are in film, I'm looking at a stack of 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.
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 flat, 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 list.
On new screens, obviously, I like the, like I said, aam film.
If there's another one that's like a orange brand, let's see, super shields.
I don't know.
Sometimes you just get unlucky, so you put them on in the three days later you crack them.
So, you know, just be aware that, you know, there's, there's brains out there that are
probably not as good.
There's ratings, it's called like 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,
but it's a bunch of who are anyways.
So in the 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 a fellow.
I like the, the, the kith that it came with with different kinds.
And I've collected ones from over, you know, you order something like a, you know,
dash camera, something, and they'll come with pry tools to use for the car.
So I have various pry tools and such different sizes, but if you, if you take stuff apart,
get yourself some pry tools, I'm 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 with a screwdriver or number of other foreign object,
you stick in there and it wants to pop right back out.
This is step based on what you do get that foothold.
It'll stay locked in there and you can continue to kind of shove around and work on it.
But, you know, it's, it's, it's a skill set that 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.
It's different than like you have nothing else to do.
It's like getting in child's car 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, wind exit, 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-progal 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, two cares.
Gloves, like a rubber gloves, he's, this little blue gloves, baby.
Paper towels, microfiber, weight.
I have a 10 pound weight here, and we'll talk about that later.
Can't 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, ideally, is going to be more clean and theory.
Like mine of fine glasses.
I've been looking at dental, dental loops.
They're very expensive, but I've tried 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 and look like a dork thing.
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 manufacturing visors, they don't work.
So, if you have any ideas or suggestions on, you know,
a magnification stuff, but I have been looking at dental, dental loops for that stuff.
Ice-progal alcohol, I'm actually almost out after having the same bottle for
probably 10 years, I only have to see a date on here, but this is old.
This has got to be of these 10, 15 years old.
MG chemicals, I'd use their, 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, journals, ports, anything, metal, the metal,
you start noticing issues, spray spray, wait a minute,
don't get 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 all it, that doesn't work convenient, no, just take your time.
If I didn't ice-clean surface, we're going to wipe it off here, actually,
with just my awesome index, just because I don't want,
I don't want dust flying around, 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 one of those wood puzzle,
one of those wooden, put together things, kind of like the metal, metal earth, but 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, and you obviously, too.
That way, the other hand, I can use for grabbing stuff for whatever,
so my clean hand never, 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 is a matter of course, I'm about to wash my hands.
So, I wash my glove, because I reuse this thing glove, reduce reuse.
Sorry about the audio there, but I wash my hands, then I wait and let them dry,
and I wash the gloves, obviously, put the gloves on, and then I wash my gloves.
So, now I have a clean hand, and 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, a drop protection, multi-blabdy blah blah, she dropped your phone on the corner, I think,
can it crack dead, or if you crack 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,
G glass, screen protector, the brand, it's green, and the MAM film, the M 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
thing 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, and 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 without using these, honestly. So, if I can't rig something out, 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.
There's really all you need is light shining on the phone as you're putting it down to make
sure you're not like a missing anything. So, you need the can of air ready, and you need the
phone itself. Now, this phone's not gross, because it was behind a shield, but I do want to make
sure that there's no not a single spec 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 windx on the paper towel and kind of let
it as a let us 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 want
that paper towel to give me some sleepness, 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 windx and the, yes, he's not going to work.
Am I going to be happy? Not going to be 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 fulcening around with head lamps and
whatever. So, I grease it up, no matter what, put ton of ton of windx on here, and you know,
you're not supposed to use windx like this, but, you know, like I said, by the time you damage the screen,
you either cracked it or you've got any foam anyway, so I mean, we're talking about like
super long-term type stuff. So, I'll hit it up with the windx 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 iceberg of 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't 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 have pets or a pair or dust,
I mean, I already see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine, nine, 12,
it's probably 20 specks 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. I'll go home on here.
So, 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 foam later, but I would clean it all now, because as soon as you grab a piece,
a tiny little speck of dust, or worse a spot of grease, you are completely screwed. It's
it, you're done. So, our surface is good. We've done our ice propel alcohol, we've done our,
wind decks, our little layer of wind decks 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 a case,
so I'm going to wash my hands again, because the door is covered in disgustingness, grease, people.
Pickle matter. Pickle 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 speck of dust
enters the atmosphere. So, I got my little cap of water, which is basically gone now. So,
I'll probably use some wind decks. I'm using my palm to close the door,
and we're going to see if we can get that to stick on the river. So, a 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
views 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 and that's the same direction to get off all
those greasy spots and streaks. 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 wind decks, 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 covering and dust. And it's been sitting inside of a plastic bag, inside of a
container for four months or so. Now, most of them come with these stickers and you can pull the dust
off the stickers and then you can put the blip blip blip blip blip blip. So, you pull the, it says
glide guide sticker. I don't even know how you just must use this. Maybe to help you put the
put the glass on correctly, and then they have a dust absorber, which is just whatever,
I'm never even used these before. But, you know, it's basically a sticker that gets the dust off
with. Now, you could do that forever, or you could just can't 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
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, it's traditionally where it's
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 you say I don't want it. So, I kind of spray all around. So, kick up,
please go off all the dust to get it away from the phone. And then I do this little weird game,
why is who ate that? Did somebody eat that? I'm looking at the end of my, the end of my nozzle has
hair on it. I don't even know what that is, something. I have oil, I had 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 is 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, wind exit. But multiple angles,
you want to look at it for multiple angles and see, because you want to angle it, you don't see
anything. And from another angle, I'll see all these weird looking streaks that look like they might be
from the, uh, wind exit. So, some previous streaks in there. And honestly, the whole like do
your, 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 have the time for the resources to do it correctly. So,
I'm basically using the can of air at point point range to blow off any speck of dust.
Like 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, you got,
you got dropped or something. Or this screen got replaced and when this screen got replaced, they
they out the piece of dust behind the screen. So, I would, I'll say that that's not my fault.
That looks, that looks on top. So, that looks like that got scratched somehow.
Honestly, it is a, 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 how people listen to us in our field.
All right, so I've gotten most of this cleaned up. I'm hitting over the can of air and the light
at multiple angles. I still had 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 got one little, one little section, 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 tying you a 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 three protectors. That's another thing.
I'm actually going to turn this sideways, I have their own direction. If you have it sideways,
you can see more of the phone. I just touched it but I think you're damn it. So, as hard as you
started to try, you still have it. But yeah, I keep it sideways so I can see up and down easier.
I don't know how to wrench over and 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 got pulled you, whatever you got. It's afraid of 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 from mine, actually. This is for, I think my life's
old one. So, that won't even work. So, we get to do this life. 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 pops in so that you get a
watch out for that. And you're basically just kind of for a while, you're just slowing 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 to protect, to protect the film. So, the idea here is that,
you know, whatever's 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 bandage,
man, you just gotta go. And it's still it on there. There's one little button here. You know,
this can't air, so I'm actually getting cold. So, pulling the bottom off.
Okay, let's take a stuck in my finger for a second. Right now I can't really see the camera port
that will. But kind of once you drop, you can't shift it ever so slightly.
Feel like we're in a good spot, but once you drop what you're done, that's it. Now, if there's
something under there, guess what? Put it off, start all over. If you want to do it right,
get out, 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 better, better 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 of the other, you'll get, um,
it won't glue, it won't connect right. I'm a little off left right. Up and down is perfect,
but left to right is a little bit off, but the camera is on point. Like, the camera is like straight
in the middle. So actually, I don't know why this looks like it's off by a, uh, I guess it's almost
perfect. So, um, 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 it. I did it on the the dining room
table, uh, once. And that's when I, that was the last time I ever did on the dining room table,
because, you know, you spend all this time and you put it up there and then, you know, you put it in,
you give it to your wife, but she's like, what's this? That wasn't there, it didn't take it to go before
I put it on here. So, um, you 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. We'll break you. You can do a tiny
little speck and honestly, my wife won't care. Um, she won't know. You heard her. Um, 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, 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 the headset on so that I can
see anything before I put it on. But 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 on to 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, uh, that's the easy part is over.
Or the hard part's over. When you're done, I take a, a 10 pound weight and I put it on top of the,
little piece of foam that came with the touchscreen protector foam and I lay a 10 pound weight
on top of it and I let it sit. And hopefully it's, hopefully that pressure will kind of glue
it to the thing and it will, it won't lift up. But if I come back in 10 minutes and it is still,
you know, raised where the piece of, there's one piece of dust on here that's pretty big and it's
raising the, it's disconnecting the, the screen protector from the thing. So it's like this
cube. It's like a really thick adhesive. And that thick adhesive right 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 cool before I recorded. So it might be just blowing around in
here or me talking who knows. But oh well, anyways, that's not great. I'd say on a scale of one to 10,
that's a solid 7, 8, 7, um, usually I like to have no, no dust on it at all and, you know, it's just
depends. I just, just 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 that I don't like. And a tiny little here that you
can't even see with that light. Um, two, three, three, eight. I don't even know what that is. That's like
carpet floods or something. I don't even know what that is. It's a very thin, it's almost like carpet
floods or so anyways, hope that helps somebody out. Um, we know why that's that just died. But, um,
you know, once been twice shy, any tips, uh, any ideas, and especially the, any kind of low profile
magnifier thing that I can wear, um, would be great on any tips like the, the dental, who, or dental
loops. Anyways, you'll take it easy. Have a good one and stay safe.
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