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.

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.