If you have a smartphone, you need a screen protector to protect your valuable investment from scratches at the very least. Ideally, it should also protect you from the damage caused by impacts. But the thing with screen protectors is that if you don’t apply them properly, you get bubbles which will drive you insane. They also can interfere with your ability to use the touchscreen. Plus in the age of HD or higher quality screens, screen protectors interfere with the quality of the screen. That of course assumes that someone makes a screen protector for your phone. After all, in the era of curved screens and phones like the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, screen protectors may be hard to come by.
Now there’s a option if you want a screen protector that doesn’t have any of those downsides. The Kristall Liquid Screen Protector.
The package on the left with the red drop is for tablets and the package on the right is for phones. Inside the package is the following:
- Instructions
- Alcohol Wipe
- Microfiber cloth
- A pad with the liquid screen protector
That’s it. There isn’t much too the package and applying the screen protector is easy:
- Read the instructions
- Clean the phone’s screen with the alcohol wipe
- Use the microfiber cloth to polish and dry the screen.
- Use the pad with the liquid screen protector to apply it to the phone’s screen until you see a haze.
- Wait 2 minutes
- Use the microfiber cloth to polish the screen until it shines.
- Wait 2 minutes
- Done. Declare victory and have a beer.
One thing to point out is that it takes 48 hours for the screen protector to fully cure so that it is fully effective. You then need to apply it once a year to keep it effective.
Now, the question is does it work or not. Let me walk through their claims and what my findings are:
- It protects from scratches: I ran my keys over the screen of my iPhone 6 (For the record, I didn’t really press all that hard. But I did press hard enough to try and simulate what would happen if keys or coins in your pocket rub up against your phone) and found that there were no scratches. Thus I feel that this claim is true. Having said that, I would not rely on any screen protector to keep your phone scratch free.
- No air bubbles: True. There were no air bubbles or anything else that you find with the typical screen protector that most people use.
- Less fingerprints on the screen: True. I found that I had way less fingerprints on the screen versus a stock iPhone 6.
- It is easier to clean the screen: True. After applying the liquid screen protector, all I needed was a microfiber cloth to clean the screen
- It makes the screen water repellant: True. I found that liquid tended to bead after I applied the screen protector.
- It hardens the screen: I don’t have the means to test this empirically (nor do I want to smash a couple of iPhones to figure out what the hardness is before and after applying the screen protector). But based on the science behind this, it could be plausible. According to the company, the Kristall Liquid Screen Protector uses nanotechnology to harden the screen up to 9H levels of hardness on the MOHS scale. To put that in perspective:
- The iPhone 6 has a screen that is made of “strengthened Ion-X” glass” and is rumored to as low as 6H but could be as high as 7H. This would make it the same as Gorilla Glass 3 by Corning which is something in the range of 6H to 7H as well.
- Sapphire crystal that is used on some models of the Apple Watch is 9H.
- Diamonds rate a 10H on the MOHS scale and is the top of the scale.
Thus based on what I understand about nanotechnology, I feel that this could be plausible. Having said that, I would not rely on any screen protector to protect your screen from being smashed.
One other observation is that the liquid screen protector does make the screen feel a little different once it has been applied, but not in a bad way. It leaves a really nice gloss finish as well. I also noted that it did not interfere with the quality of the images on the screen which I really liked.
To get the Kristall Liquid Screen Protector, which won a Most Innovative Accessory Award at MWC 2015 onto your phone, head over to Amazon or select retailers across Canada for $29.95 for the phone version or $34.95 for the tablet version.