iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma

wellington map writes "TheRegister reports iPod nano users have discovered that it is unbelievably easy to scratch the screen, which quickly makes the colour screen all but useless for viewing album art and photos stored on the machine. Apple's discussion forums are already host to hundreds of threads on this topic."

Comments

Polycarbonate scratches easily

[Ancil]

Despite being incredibly strong, polycarbonate is actually quite soft. You can try this yourself. Take a pair of polycarb safety glasses.. These things can stop a shotgun pellet, but you can easily scratch them by just using the edge of a quarter.

They should have used a more brittle (but harder) acrylic for covering an LCD screen. It's not like it has to be particularly strong.

Toothpaste to the rescue!

[Snosty]

A response to this comment of mine about how to get rid of the scratches suggested toothpaste. I tried it and it actually works reasonably well with a bit of effort. After having scratched the front on the first day and subsequently used toothpaste to fix that I've been more careful since and have not noticed anything really since then.

Re:Toothpaste to the rescue!

[Apathetic1]

You may also want to try Novus plastic polish. My dad bought some to use on the tables of our pinball machines and it works beautifully. My sister had a car accident that left a scratch all the way down the side of our Saturn - my dad used Novus on it and it's barely noticeable now.

Brasso

[BlightThePower]

Use Brasso, the light abrasive normally used for cleaning brass. A little Brasso will bring a scratched screen up nicely and will also do for the back of the iPod as well. Don't be conned into buying more expensive preparations and products that people are trying to sell.

Re:Seriously! What a mistake.

[SuperficialRhyme]

"Apparently this is made of polycarbonate"

Should read:

Apparently this is made of uncoated polycarbonate.

There are coatings which can make polycarbonate scratch resistant.

Enough bitching. Practical advice... try Brasso.

[John_Booty]

Alright, so the screen is easily scratchable. Enough with the bitching and finger pointing... what can you do about it?

Try Brasso. It's available in your supermarket and costs $3-$4 for what will amount to a lifetime supply if you're just cleaning your iPod.

I managed to drop my iPod Nano on asphault the day after I got it. The player skidded and bounced on the asphault and had some rather nasty scratches on both sides. Naturally, the player still worked perfectly since it doesn't have any moving parts but it looked like hell. Brasso worked like a charm. Here's what you do...

1. Put a drop or two of Brasso on a soft cloth
2. Use a lot of elbow grease to buff out the scratches. Brasso isn't a magic potion; it's actually a very gentle abrasive. You are effectively resurfacing the iPod so it's going to take a few minutes of work.
3. Ta-da!

Now, since you're effectively resurfacing the iPod, I imagine that there is a finite amount of times you'd want to subject your iPod to this. It will leave your iPod looking great though.

I've tried this on my iPod Nano (front and back) as well as my 3g 20GB iPod. Worked great. I imagine it would work on other models as well with the possible exception of the aluminum iPod Minis since their surface differs from the polycarbonate used on other models. Should work, but I don't know.

Re:Why can't Appleites hold Apple to a high standa

[anethema]

While black shows scratches and dirt way more than white, the issue here is about the screen material beeing way more prone to scratching. This has nothing to do with the black or white body.

A fix

[austad]

Novus plastic polish

I use this stuff to shop pinball machines. You can take plastic that's been rubbed on cement and get all of the scratches out with it. Just start with #1 and work your way up to #3. Works great on plastic headlight lens too. Amazing stuff.

Re:When will people learn?

[baryon351]

I'm calling bullshit on that one too. arstechnica threw theirs out a car window at 50mph and it's less scratched than the grandparent poster's image.

Something companies have to put up with. A meme gets out that iPod nanos are getting scratched more than white iPods and everyone wants in on a class action suit by rubbing theirs down with sandpaper.

More scratches on an iPod nano sitting in a pocket than on a nano being thrown from a car window at 50mph? I don't think so.

Re:It's easy to fix those scratches.

[utexaspunk]

i don't think sandpaper is what you want. probably diamond dust. my grandmother, who deals in antique glass, uses this thing that looks like an eraser that has diamond dust embedded in it. You just rub it on a scratched area and it smooths it right out.

Re:Designer's Response

[shark72]

"I could be wrong, but isn't profit the money a business gets AFTER costs such as these are considered?"

You're correct. When the GP wrote "$100 profit" what he really meant was "$100 bill of materials cost." Here's the article where he got his info.

As counter-intuitive as this will surely sound, a 2:1 ratio of retail price to BOM cost is not great in this industry. I can think of at least five well-known, A-list PC peripheral and CE device companies who have a 3:1 ratio or greater.