If you ever went through the negative experience of having your smartphone fall to the ground and damage its screen, you might have come across several tips and suggestions that involve the use of simple household materials that will help you to remove the scratches present on your smartphone or tablet screens. There are some ways of repairing and maintaining your smartphone screen and then, there are some ways that you must absolutely avoid. This article is going to highlight all the items that you must never use if your original intent is to maintain your smartphone’s screen at its peak condition.
1. Using toothpaste
If you happen to have a bunch of CDs or DVDs lying around that have developed scratches overtime, then toothpaste and bananas will be the perfect items to whip them back into shape. However, using toothpaste on a smartphone screen and expecting it to recover the same way as your optical disks have is going way beyond wishful thinking. This is because when you use toothpaste to fix CDs, the paste will remove or at the very least alleviate the imperfections present on the polycarbonate plastic layer of the disk. When the disk is re-entered into the optical drive, the laser beam coming from the drive will not be deflected in any direction thanks to the removal of those imperfections. Toothpaste maybe a CD’s best friend but it will end up being your smartphone screen’s worst nightmare. In short, never ever use toothpaste to remove scratches off smartphone screens.
2. Using Sandpaper
The last time I used sandpaper, it was to remove the paint from the metal pipe going deep underground so I could wrap a copper wire around it and in doing so, successfully ground my PC. While sandpaper does have its uses, removing scratches from smartphones is certainly not one of them. If you need further convincing, then you should know that sandpaper comprises of a very rough surface that is used to either remove paint from a surface or level a surface to make a scratch nonexistent. Now imagine the exact same scenario when you use sandpaper on a smartphone screen. You will end up creating a rougher surface on your smartphone screen when will completely remove the smooth touchscreen feel to it. If you want to even out a surface then sandpaper will be the perfect tool for you but if u want to use it to get rid of screen scratches then you’re just begging for your smartphone to end up becoming an expensive paperweight.
3. Using Baking Soda
Baking Soda is a substitute for when you don’t have toothpaste left in your tube. As much as baking soda is beneficial for a number of applications, removing scratches from your smartphone isn’t one of them. Lots of people have ended up recommending mixing baking soda with water and applying the mixture over the surface of the smartphone screen. Anyone who has told you this pointer has obviously not performed the same experiment on their own device and even if they have, they forgot to point out one important property of baking soda. It possesses a rough surface and similar to sandpaper, if you end up applying the solution on your smartphone you will end up doing more harm than good.
4. Using Oil
Oil is used to cook food, and acts as a lubricant for the smooth rotation and movement of moving parts (commonly a car engine), not to remove scratches from your smartphone. There have been several smartphone hacks detailed around the web stating that using a small drops of vegetable oil will help to seep in to the scratch so it will give the illusion that the scratch was not present on the screen in the first place. However, since oil possesses a semi-fluid property, not to mention that it also gives out an odor, you will end up having your smartphone’s screen and whatever item you place it in, smudged with oil and its odor, so as an expedient solution, using oil is certainly not the way to do things.
Corning’s Gorilla Glass has specifically stated that the screens attached to smartphones and tablets possess resistance against scratches; which automatically means that they are not scratchproof. Furthermore, if you end up dropping them from the considerable height, then they will most likely end up with a crack. The only way to prevent further damage to your smartphone’s screen is by using the following materials:
- Screen protector
- Smartphone case with flip covers (rubber case is preferred over the regular ones. They will be pricier, but will offer additional protection)
The above two items will not completely protect your device from being scratched nor they will guarantee shatterproofing the screen once your device falls from a considerable height. The only thing that you can guarantee will help you to rid yourself of this encumbrance is to replace the smartphone screen. If it is still under warranty and if the warranty conditions state that the smartphone screen can be replaced in case it is damaged, then luck is in on your side. However, testing your luck with the above items to temporarily rid yourself of screen scratches will not help you. There are other iterations that will help to reinforce the smartphone screens with greater protection. Apart from Apple acquiring Sapphire manufacturing plants to manufacture synthetic Sapphire glass for their upcoming mobile products, researchers from the University of Akron have developed a shatterproof touchscreen film that will make the screen of the smartphone virtually shatterproof. Hopefully, several of these iterations will be incorporated in to the next generation smartphones.
