Thursday, August 15, 2013

REVIEW: Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector

Product Testing-1200
Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed with my latest generation of cameras that the LCD’s seem to be more surface scratch prone than their predecessors. While phones these days tend to use Gorilla Glass®, it seems that camera LCD’s still aren’t quite that durable. Either that, or I’m just harder on my gear these days.

Whatever the reason, when I got contacted by Expert Shield about their screen protectors I quickly jumped on the chance to try them out. After several months of use without any issues, I’m not happy to report that I like this product. It hasn’t peeled off like some of the ones that I’ve used on cell phones on the past, and it didn’t degrade the quality of my LCD image. A big reason for this is that this product uses a firm gel that resists warping and peeling, plus it has a glossy finish to match your LCD. The net result, is that if you get it put on without any dust then you’ll not be able to tell it has even been installed.

The Big If

If you’ve ever put one of these types of things on then you know how easy it is to get dust and dust bubbles. My studio is a dust library, so my best first effort resulted in the one dust bubble you see in the photo at the top of this article. My attempt to video an application of another shield while on the carpet failed miserably due to all of the dust down at that level.

Tips for Installing

When they say a dust free environment, they mean it. However, few of us really have that so the best bet is to get up high as dust likes to fall. If you do this and follow the directions carefully you can get pretty good results. If you end up with the spot like I have and it bugs you, then their tip of using tape to clean the surface is a great one. This gets rid of the remaining dust that the included microfiber might miss. If you screw up you can also apply the tape to the shield to clean it and try again.

In the end, diligence and patience will get perfect results. The instructions are well written and helpful even in the case if something doesn’t go perfect with your installation. Here’s also a decent installation video that I found on YouTube from MeAndMyAperture:

The final part of the video makes it seem like there's some discoloration or something on the LCD with the screen protector applied, but I suspect that is video compression artifacts as no such issues existed on my devices during my testing.

Tips for Removal

Once this shield has been applied it feels like it’s become a part of the LCD. This made me very nervous as I was afraid it might damage my LCD if I ever had to remove it. Today, months after I installed it, I was able to remove it by simply getting my finger nail under a corner and lifting. It came off super easy, despite previously feeling like it would never come off. Here’s a video that shows the removal after I already worked the corner loose:

Conclusion

I tried this product with my phone and Canon 5D Mark III and it worked great even after months of use and abuse. It’s available for a wide variety of cameras and other devices for under $11 (at the time of this writing), so I have no reservations about highly recommending it. With no loss of LCD image quality and extra protection it’s a no brainer for this price!

Where to order

Click here to order the Expert Shield - THE Screen Protector at Amazon.

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2 comments:

rbadiola said...

The rainbows existed on mine...and it is definitely NOT video compression artifacts. Just to let you know.

ronmartblog.com said...

rbadiola,

Hum, I'm not sure what you mean. What rainbows?

I haven't seen any rainbow effect on my screen protectors.

If you are referring to my video, there's lots of ugliness that happens from what I capture on camera to what you see on YouTube that drastically reduces the quality of the video. It's not an accurate representation of what I see on my computer.

Ron