Is your laptop screen always dirty and filled with disgusting grease? I don’t know how but my laptop screen will always fill with fingerprints despite my efforts not to touch it. One easy solution is to use wipes or wet wipes to clean it, but is this safe or are you taking unnecessary risks by doing this?
Using wet wipes to clean your laptop screen exposes you to the risk of damaging the antireflective coating applied by the manufacturer. Plain wipes are the safer way but you need to use a cleaning solution approved by the laptop manufacturer or plain water.
In this article, I will discuss in more detail if you can use wiper/ wet wipes for cleaning the laptop screen or a Macbook screen and I will tell you what are the better solutions so that you avoid damaging your screen while still having a screen that is clean and looks like new.
Can I Use Wipes to Clean My Laptop Screen?
If you use dry wipes that aren’t imbued with any chemical substance you will not damage the display but you need to use them in combination with a cleaning solution recommended by the laptop manufacturer or water, the downside is that you may end up having to clean the fiber left behind from the wipe.
To make sure that you don’t have to clean the fibers left behind by wipes it is better to use a microfiber cloth, this way your laptop display will end up looking like new.
Now if you don’t have access to a microfiber cloth a good workaround will be using a coffee filter because they are a clean and fiber-free alternative to microfiber cloths because it is not acceptable to have paper fibers in your coffee.
Can I Use Wet Wipes to Clean My Laptop Screen?
Wet wipes manufacturers use different chemical formulas for their products, the main focus being cleaning your skin or disinfecting the surfaces on which they are used.
Many laptop manufacturers will treat the display with an antiglare coating which can be damaged if it gets in contact with some cleaning substances, so in some cases, you may get away with using wet wipes but in some situations, you will damage the antiglare coating.
So if you want to be sure that you will not end up with a lower quality display you may want to avoid wet wipes!
Is It Okay to Wipe the Laptop Screen with Water?
Wiping the laptop screen with water is a great and safe way to clean it the only downside being that it will demand more effort than using a dedicated cleaning solution. If you want to be extra careful you can use distilled or still water, this way you don’t have to worry about mineral residue being left on the surface of your screen.
Using a microfiber cloth sprayed with water is one of the best ways to clean your laptop display, this way you won’t damage the antiglare coating of the display and you won’t have to deal with stubborn paper fibers left behind by wipes. It requires some work but your display will end up looking like new.
It is not recommended that you soak the cloth in water because this can easily lead to water leaking from the cloth into more sensitive parts on your laptop and you may end up with bigger problems on your hands. Using a sprayer to apply water on the surface of the cloth seams is the safer way.
Be sure you don’t apply too much pressure on the display even if is harder to clean, some laptops have very sensitive displays, it is better to wipe more than to end up with a broken display. And yes, by using water you will end up wiping much more than with a dedicated cleaning solution.
Sometimes when my display is really dirty I will use a paper wipe sprayed with water for the first clean and afterward I use a microfiber cloth (or coffee filter) sprayed with water to finish the job, this way I end up having a clean display that looks like new.
Can You Clean the Macbook Screen with Wet Wipes?
Apple recommends that you use “70 isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes” to clean your display and other nonporous parts of your MacBook, as you can see using regular wet wipes isn’t the right choice. Chemicals in the wet wipe can damage the antiglare coating and even damage the display itself.
For my new MacBook, I use a microfiber cloth sprayed with water and I don’t let the display become too dirty, by cleaning it more often I don’t have to wipe that much each time I clean it. Be aware that new MacBooks are renowned to have fragile displays, so be very gentle with your wipes.
For MacBooks, I highly recommend that you get a microfiber cloth so the cleaning process will be as easy as possible and you don’t spend extra time and effort wiping and so you can be extra careful and not damage your display. Many users with cracked MacBook displays are reporting that the cost of the reparation was supported by them, so be extra careful!
Conclusion
There are many laptop manufacturers on the market and they all have different displays with different types of antiglare coatings applied, for this reason, it is not recommended that you use wet wipes because you don’t know all the chemicals used to make them and there is a risk that some of them will damage the display or the antiglare coating of the display.
Using paper wipes is not harmful but will leave paper fibers on the display, the recommended solution is using microfiber clots or other materials that don’t leave fibers on the screen but are soft enough to not scratch it (you can use coffee filters as an alternative to a microfiber cloth).
I started building and fixing PCs in high school. After a couple of years of offering consultancy to a PC repair shop, I became the goto guy for all my acquaintances for PC/Laptop related buying advice or troubleshooting.
