When it comes to screen protection for mobile gadgets, you’ll find yourself
on a market where thousands of companies try to get your attention.  One
of them is Spigen who were able to get mine. Hardened glass that’s ultrathin
yet scratch-resistant and easy to install. Big words or reality?

Okay, so I ordered one of the Glass.tr Nano Slim for my 5S as I want the screen have no scratches. Having paid 50.75 US$ with shipping, the packet arrived 6 days later. Seemed okay to me as the features are nice. But see the chart below for some info

The small blister comes with everything you need to have the glass applied to your screen. An isopropylalcohol-moistured cloth, a spudge, the glass of course and a manual. There was a giveaway for the homebutton as well but applying a black, gray or red homebutton on the fingerprint sensor doesn’t make much sense, eh? The product however is also applicable on the iPhone 5 sh that might be the reason why the homebuttons were packed.

Okay. So the installation should be easy but according to many forum contributions you will need a very clean room, dust-free that is, in order to have a clean application of the glass.

The fact is that 99.9% of the home owners and 99.999% of the rent-payers will for sure not have a cleanroom in their home that’s dust-free. The only trick might be using a steamed bathroom (which can be achieved by letting hot water run for several minutes) where the steam is going to tie the dust for a while.

As easy as it sounds, that’s where my troubles have started. Yet having prepared well for the operation, I still ended up with some dust particles between the 5S panel and the silicone layer of the glass. The installation however is rather simple: Unfurl the protective film from the adhesive side of the glass and quickly align and apply it to your phone.

Done that, yet not much luck not having the pesky dust in between. Okay, doesn’t look too bad anyways as the silicone is a tad more flexible to enclose microparticles. The effect however is annoying that you have something on your display you can’t swipe away.

The apply process however is plain simple. Align the glass and simply tap on it and watch the silicone layer bond with the screen slowly. You can accelerate the process using the spudger. it’s up to you. In my case I didn’t have to use the spudger at all because wiping the glass with a microfiber cloth cleanly applied the glass

All well I thought until yesterday. While the main area still is sort of intact, the upper right corner of my glass tended to solve away from the screen glass leaving a not-nice-to-look-at-corner of air between the silicone adhesive and the screen glass.

So my try was to carefully detach the screen protector and apply it again. The thought was well but the success was not coming in ending up in more dust in between. Since you can easily wash off the silicone adhesive (don’t use cleaning agent’s though just rinse it under clean water!) the process might be started over… if it wasn’t for one latched edge between the silicone adhesive and the glass! The product seems good and well-thought to me although the quality still needs some improvements.

So the first sample is now looking ugly, cannot be applied to the screen properly anymore and leaving me there with a 50 US$ expensive glass shard.

Still ordered one another in order to try again hoping that the new sample might have been better manufactured not leaving me with a bubbly edge.

I also wonder where I could attach the glass to the screen as I cannot imagine of an absolutely clean room. Guess it has to be the steamer again.

So what’s the verdict on the product? Well… it’s mixed up.

Final words and verdict:

Usability: ★★★★☆
Quality: ★★★☆☆
Haptics: ★★★★★
Installation: ★☆☆☆☆
Corrections: ★★★☆☆

Overall: ★★★☆☆

Final words and conclusion: The product itself is fine while the installation process is, frankly said, a nightmare! While other screen protectors also suffer from this manko, the Spigen glass allows smaller corrections during installation process and once it should break, the deinstallation isn’t as difficult as those using plain adhesives. Although the idea is fine, the biggest enemy for a proper glass installation is still called “dust”. No matter how careful you are, you’ll most likely end up with having two or three dust particles enclosed. the silicone adhesive might be able to tare this out enclosing the dust particle. But if it’s too big then you end up with an enclosed bubble or at minimum a shabby dust particle distorting the clear view on the screen…

Silicone as adhesive is for sure a very clever and good idea for attaching the screen protector. From aspects of re-usability a good point but the reality bites as the silicone layer seems not too sticky to its carrying substrate. So if you are in need to re-align the protective glass, you’ll most likely end up with a “worn-out” edge (where you lift the glass again) and/or dust particles on the silicone adhesive no matter how often you rinse the silicone layer under tapwater (yes, it is cleanable this way!)

As already stated, the haptics are sleek and fine. It feelas as if you glide your fingers over a thin air layer. fast yet precise touch inputs are possible.

The quality of the glass is good to near-perfect while the silicone layer may undergo some irregularities which can probably be visible (such as bubbles or lifted edges where there should be none. A product this expensive should not have these anyways! Since the glass is industrially manufactured and balanced out, the glass is not to blame for irregularities.

All in all I consider this product good as it helps protecting your phone screen from scratches (be it a key or other sharp metal object. The downside is clearly the lack of precision for the adhesive layer as well as the installation proces which requires a really clean room. Yet it seems a good investition to me if it comes to protection of the new gadget and it’s delicate display-

Find more info about the products and how to order them on their homepage: http://www.spigen.com