Periphera

Screen Protectors

A screen protector is a sheet of clear plastic that goes over the screen of your Palm device. This minimizes the likelihood of scratches to the screen, and serves as a surface that can be disposed of after being worn by Graffiti text entry.

There are two major ways Palm OS devices tend to be used. Probably the most common way is for the Palm OS device to be treated as a portable data display device for the desktop computer. In this type of usage, which is what the designers envisioned, very little data is entered into the device. Instead, the Palm OS device is almost the equivalent of a book of printouts from the desktop computer: data entered or manipulated on the desktop is copied to the Palm OS device for convenient display away from the desktop computer. If you use your Palm OS device in this way, screen protectors are of secondary importance: you can likely get along without one, and, if you use them, a single cling vinyl screen protector will last months.

If you use your Palm OS device for serious data entry—as I am doing by writing this web site on my Palm OS device—you will definitely want to use screen protectors. I go through a screen protector about every third battery change, and find commercial screen protectors simply too expensive.

Commercial screen protectors are generally made of cling vinyl cut to the size of the PDA screen. Many Palm OS device screens are roughly 6cm by 8cm. Of this area, the display surface is 6cm square, and the Graffiti and “silk screened button” area is 6cm by 2cm. If your PDA has a different screen size, generally commercial screen protectors are available but at a higher price than that of the “standard” size.

Commercial screen protectors also run $1 to $2 each. For a Palm OS device user who really uses the device, this adds up quickly. You can stretch commercial cling vinyl screen protectors by slicing them into four strips, and protecting only the high-wear Graffiti entry area of the screen. You can further stretch them by rotating the strip to move the worn spot from the letter side to the number side; and perhaps obtain a final stretch by trimming the unworn strip from the right side, repositioning the protector to the right, and putting the unworn strip down on the left.

While that amount of “stretching”—making each protector do the work of 12—appeals to my Yankee nature, I find it easier to make my own screen protectors.

Cling vinyl is available from art supply houses. It comes in rolls about a yard wide and is sold, like fabric, by the yard. A square yard of cling vinyl will make 165 screen protectors at a cost of a few cents, rather than a dollar or two, each.

Few of us have the patience or skill to accurately cut a square yard of cling vinyl into 165 pieces. Certainly this is beyond my ability. However, cling vinyl is not the only material from which to make screen protectors. Other materials that have been successfully used include adhesive transparent sign making sheets and heavy duty page protectors, both available in office supply stores and frequently in department stores.

I personally have found heavy duty page protectors most to my liking. I use a steel ruler and retractable cutter to slice the plastic sheets into strips, with an old magazine or newspaper underneath to protect the table; and then I slice the strips into rectangles. Five minutes’ work yields a six-month supply of screen protectors, at a cost of a fraction of a cent each.

A more information on homemade screen protectors can be found at Pocket PC Passion.

The Palm m100 series has the added feature of a replaceable faceplate. If you cut the screen protector to the size of the screen with the faceplate off, the faceplate then holds the screen protector in place.

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Copyright © 2002 Brian Hetrick
Page last updated 15 July 2003.