A Screen Protector for Your iPhone Is Cheap Insurance

If you’ve ever wondered what an iPhone sounds like when it makes a face-down belly flop onto granite tile, it sounds a lot like a regular belly flop. I’d broken life’s number one rule: Don’t be an idiot.

Screen protectors are thin sheets of adhesive-backed glass that cover your phone’s screen. How many people do you see who are carrying around a phone with a screen so cracked that it looks like a prop from Mad Max?

Don’t be like them. Save your screen with a cheap screen protector. It’s saved mine many times.

cheap, clear armor

Coming down the steps of my apartment last week, I was rushing and fumbling with my phone in my pocket, and when somebody asked where UPS drops off the packages in this place, I pointed with my hand. The one holding my phone, which, as it happens, was kind of slippery and wet.

It flew out of my hand, which was already two feet higher than it’d normally be, because of the steps, and landed smack on the floor. After I got done smacking myself in the head for about 10 minutes, I checked the phone. It’d suffered only a couple of small cracks in the screen protector, but left the phone’s screen completely undamaged.

I’ve used Spigen and Belkin screen protectors for my iPhones. I’d recommend both of them. Swiping, tapping, and typing on a glass screen protector feels the same as using the bare screen, and if it makes any theoretical difference in how video or text appears, I haven’t noticed one bit of it.

Aside from protecting the screen from scratches, it spreads out impact forces. That’s likely why my iPhone took a heck of a tumble and only suffered superficial wounds on the screen protector itself. It wasn’t even that damaged. I haven’t replaced it yet because it still looks to be in better shape than most people’s phone screens.

They come with special applicators that line up the protector perfectly, because you only get one shot at placing them. You can’t remove them and replace them.

You might wonder why screen protectors only seem to come in packs of two or more. It’s because even with the applicator, it’s easy to screw up the installation by getting an air bubble between the protector and the iPhone’s screen. You might go through two or three before you get it right.

If you don’t feel like chancing it, you can go to an Apple store and they’ll apply it for you. The Belkin screen protectors they sell are expensive at $40 a pop, but there’s the benefit that you’re guaranteed a perfect installation.

If the salesperson makes a mistake, they’ll get another one and apply it for free. And another, until they get it right. I haven’t seen many screw it up, though. They’ve had enough practice that it’s old hat to them.