Cloth to Protect LCD From Keyboard

Hi all!

I store my SR in my bag with my books and on one occassion, noticed that the keys created impressions on my screen. These were wiped away rather easily, but I'm looking for some sort of cloth that I can lay on my keyboard to protect the screen from it. Is there any official one I can buy from sony that will fit perfectly with the SR, or is there any one brand or place I can buy a good one from? Any ideas will be great!

 

Lol just posted this pic in the Z thread. I used the one in the pic for my MBA and worked perfect.

 

As far as I am aware there is no offial one.
(All previous laptops including my SZ work fine without the cloth...)

You could just use a standard towel

If you want to be able to clean your laptop with that piece of cloth, your best guess would be a microfibre cloth.
It allows you to clean the screen, your mobile's screen and your glasses too oh, and your SLR's lens

-> In short: Any microfibre cloth will be best.

 

Here's an 'official' one:
http://www.amazon.com/Notebook-Scre...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1219585342&sr=1-22

 

Hmm, its just that standard microfibre cloths cost half that or less....

 

I just use a plain piece of printer paper (and have been using for the past year), it works great. All you have to do is prevent the keyboard and LCD from making contact, and there should be no more marks.

 

The one I posted is free

 

Lol Phil, I'm a little OCD, so using a roughly cut up piece of plastic kind of scares me. I guess I will just have to go get any olf microfibre cloth then? I was just wondering if there was anything specially made by Sony so that it would fit perfectly. I guess not!

 

Nope never seen one by Sony. (by the way the one I'm using is not plastic, but some kind of soft packaging material.)

 

I think this one should fit:
http://www.shaggymac.com/index.php?..._id=33&zenid=a787adbbf548ca795edcb9f60f4eaead

 

Still, a "normal" microfibre cloth will cost half or less of that.

And you get the same.

(Except size)

 

Go to the automotive dept at your local Target. They have a two pack of grey microfiber cloths for under $5.

Been using one between the screen and keyboard in my FZ190 since I got it a year ago in July.

Gary

 

for the German fellows in here:

http://www.amazon.de/iStuff-Keyboar...2962125?ie=UTF8&s=ce-de&qid=1219663432&sr=8-1

 

http://www.amazon.com/Notebook-Scre...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1222279700&sr=8-2

would the one above fit the z?

 

if the laptop is well designed the keys should not hit the screen. I put my asus with books and other stuff and nothing ever happened.

 

Welcome to reality 101. Many different machines have exhibited this problem over the years. You are lucky with the Asus. I have seen this on certain models from Sony, HP, Dell, etc. It just depends on how well the rubber bumpers last and the flex in the lid.

I've got a microfiber cloth on my FZ190, just because I don't know if it is one that will have the problem or not. And I don't want to find out the hard way.

Gary

 

there are $1.99 at wal mart that come in 2 packs. microfiber clothes..pretty big size, defin. should cover the screen when closed. Yea yea..don't like wal mart? i don't want to hear it. just saying that they are there for your choosing.

 

I use the ShaggyMac on my Z. Perfect fit. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3957847&postcount=119

 

I bought this one. Hangs out the front. I had to cut it using an exacto knife.

 

"Reality" is relative. That's why his statement mentioned "well-designed". I just bought the Sony Z591. A good machine but not even remotely as well designed/built as my Asus W3J. I have had the screen/keyboard smudge problem on every notebook over the past 10-15 years, including several Dells (the biggest culprit), HP/Compaq, AST, Sony, etc. IBM/Lenovo was the least prone of that lot, but the Asus W3J has never once had it on very vigorous use over the past couple of years. So yes, there actually is better-designed/built product out there.

 

"well-designed" and "sturdy" are two different things... my old latitude never exhibited the screen-hitting-keyboard problem, but i wouldn't say that it's "well-designed" for that reason.

the fact of the matter is that you are comparing a sub-4lb notebook to your 5.5lb tank. if i slap on 2 lbs of lead to the screen lid of my z to prevent flex, would you consider it "well-designed"?

 

Lead is pretty soft though, and a bit poisonous. So not a great choice. Titanium would be better.

 

If I remember well, in a Z thread PhilFlow mentioned some really nice fancy one (I remember he sent just a screenshot of the site). Can you pls post it again, I liked that one the most...

 

Like I said, I have the ShaggyMac micro, and one thing I really don't like about it is that it seems to gunk up the screen a bit. If your screen is clean, whatever is on that micro seems to also get on the screen. So if you look at your screen at an angle, there's a "smudge"-like stuff on the screen. Easily wipeable, true, but still annoying.

 

I've had SM stuff since I had my SZ - it's never gunked up the screen.

 

Maybe you need to clean your cloth then?

 

I believe it was ScreenSavrz by Radtech:

http://www.radtech.us/Products/NotebookScreenSavrz.aspx

 

Yep, thanks, that's it...I think it still looks the best...

 

Touche!

I think I'm going to order the Radtech one and see what happens... but I don't want the fullsize one, so I'm thinking the Universal might work. It's a little small though...

 

I ordered the 'MacBook 13.3" Widescreen PC' model earlier so will let you know how well it fits when I receive it (probably quite a while because they're sending it via USPS).

 

i like that one, but i just hate the fact that it covers EVERYTHING. i just need it to cover the keys only. and if i cut it, it'll probably fray.

 

I've seen examples of the webcam getting scratched by touching the fingerprint scanner or thereabouts on other vaios (?TZ), so I thought the idea of total coverage for the display seemed a good one.

My only worry is that it might not be a perfect fit because of the Z's wider-than-usual aspect.

 

My ScreenSavrz 'cloth' arrived today. It's made of a weird spongey/rubbery/microfibre-esque material, about 1mm thick. Should be perfect protection-wise.
Dimensions-wise, it's slightly too tall for the Z, although pretty much perfect width.
I'm probably going to try trimming the top edge with a guillotine style paper cutter. I don't think it will fray because of the material it's made of, but I shall report back.

 

Stop!!!

Guillotine like paper cutter - there are two types, good ones and bad ones (both can be expensive)

One uses an actual blade, this one should cut it nicely.

The other uses two sharpened edges, no blade involveld, which grind between against each other and cut the paper. This one may tear your cloth!

 

Well I was planning on using my dad's, which has a circular cutter which turns as it moves along the metal edge. Seems to cut (paper) very sharply so fingers-crossed...

 

If its a cingular cutter its not really a guillotine.

Should go well.

Good luck!

 

OK cool. It's like one of these:

http://www.rotatrim.co.uk/product.php?product_code=171

I agree... guillotine wasn't really a good description!

 

good info, let us know how it goes... i may purchase one.

side question... which color did you get?

 

I know them

At home we've got one of the "bad" guillotines and this "roller thing".

(The "bad guillotine" will still cut paper, but not too much, and too thick)

 

i used one from shaggy mac for my SZ and got one for my SR
i think at shaggymac.com you can order a custom sized one, just get a ruler and measure the area you want to cover.

 

Thanks. Interestingly, the cutter could hardly make an impression - it's very tough material! In the end I just used a sharp pair of normal household scissors to cut along the impression made by the cutter in the material.
I then looked carefully at how the cloth was placed, especially in relation to the little rubber 'spacers' along the top and sides of the screen bezel and beside the shift keys on the keyboard...
... and decided to cut small sections out so that cloth didn't cover them. I'm pleased with the result - the lid closes perfectly and the cloth itself is very good at removing fingerprints and smudges from the screen.

As above, it was a bit of a faff to cut the cloth to the exact size and shape I wanted. Ideally, I would want a fractionally smaller cloth instead. That said, I'm happy with the end result. I bought a grey one, by the way. I figured it would both match the Z style wise and also hide any fluff better than black.

 

So, is this what you got?

http://www.amazon.com/RadTech-Scree...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1222900992&sr=8-4

 

Well done.
Good to hear it ended up OK.

 

Yup, that's the one. It's approx 1" too tall due to the Z's 16:9 aspect and thin bezel. The width is pretty spot on, but it just covers the small rubber bumbers next to the shift keys. I decided I wanted them uncovered to allow the thing to close perfectly, so made some small cut-outs in the sides.

Cheers. I should really post some pics but having a 1 year old means I barely play with my camera any more!

 

just a quick update.

i bought the radtech one like i think infymcgirk did... had to cut it, used a big sharp kitchen knife, no problems. i'm very pleased with it, although it did cost me some coin. ~$20 i think.

in contrast, i bought some microfiber towels from pepboys for my car, thought i could use it for z too... too thick i think, and if i were to cut it down to size i think it would fray too much.

 

That's weird. I also bought some car cleaning microfibre cloths first, but thought they were a bit poor quality (and bright blue was the only colour they had!)... so gave up on them and bought the radtech expensive version.

I'm pleased with the Radtech cloth. It's got a very high quality feel to it - almost rubbery without being tacky at all - and it cleans dust and fingerprints off the screen really easily.

 

i think we got the same ones... good for car, no good for z.

i use the extra edge i cut from the radtech to clean my monitor at work. it's awesome, worth the extra money imo.

 

I got a shaggymac cloth and not a big fan. I tried to clean the carbon fiber part of the Z on the top side, and small pieces comes off, as if the carbon fiber were a sand paper. And combining the cloth with their screen cleaning solution, my Z's screen gets badly streaked.

I am thinking of getting the Radtech one now, but not sure how that is comparable to shaggymac. But if you are thinking of buying it, buy it from www.radtech.us, and use the promocode RTPROMO1 to get 15% off discount.

 

i just use the Allsop Travel Smart Mouse Pad

it's almost a perfect fit and it's cheap, you can find it at office depot or almost anywhere online :\

 

I don't this screen burn is as much as a problem as it use to be, due to laptops not getting as 'hot' as they use to.