Anyone who regularly goes on the OcPrices forums may have noticed a black sheep who roams the threads, someone who quite doesn’t fit in. This person is me, Corestandeven. I am a black sheep because I know almost nothing about hardware and many methods of over-clocking to me seem a little strange, extreme and basically over the top. So what the hell am I doing constantly wandering the site? Well even I don’t know that answer. I just do! Strange eh?
This review is my first ever hardware review and to be honest its hardly hardcore tinkering for all you guys/girls out there, but you should be interested as this product may seem a waste of money, but could actually be very beneficial for your health in the future.
I can safely assume that if you are on this site, you spend a great deal of time either inside or, more importantly for this review, in front of your computer gazing moronically into the monitor. I must spend at least 4-7 hours a day, sometimes more, in front of my PC.
Do you find it difficult to get to sleep, especially when the last thing you’ve been doing is sitting in front of the monitor for a long session of forum posting? Or get headaches after long use? Obviously something is not right. While PC companies, like many others (e.g. Mobile Phones) insist that like monitors are safe from producing Radiation and damaging glare, why is it that pregnant women are advised to avoid long periods of sitting in front of a computer? At first I thought the same as you probably do “What a load of cobblers!” But after a discussion with my girlfriend (That sentance wont make anyone think you are less of a nerd - Ed) I got a bit paranoid and started looking to buy a radiation screen anyway.
At first I was highly sceptical. All were very expensive and the only one I had seen in real life a year ago was a huge chunky mammoth of a screen filter. It looked foul! Eventually I ran into the Kensington SlimScreen on a UK distributor for about £75 GB and decided to go ahead.
Installation
The SlimScreen doesn’t look amazing when you first open it, but I couldn’t believe how light and thin it was. Thinking back to my stereotypical view of that chunky radiation screen, it was nothing like I expected. In fact it isn’t even made of glass, but is made of a plastic - this is better since it's flexible and thin. Installation is relatively straight forward in theory; you get Velcro tabs which you just position and then place around your monitor. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, as if you get the position wrong it would be very hard to correct afterwards.
Once it’s on it’s held pretty solidly.
The first and best thing about it is that you don’t even notice that it is on your monitor! Sounds weird after just spending £75, but it’s actually really good. It doesn’t distract you and the filter doesn’t distort the image you see on the monitor. It just blends seamlessly into the monitor and doesn’t intrude, as my lovely assistant shows below (LOL). If you are particularly eagle-eyed ou can you just make out the boundary of monitor to SlimScreen.
Specifications
The screen itself claims to offer protection against…
• 99% ELF/VLF magnetic field Radiation
• 99.9% Visual Glare - Glare and reflections from nearby light sources (Glare is what can give you headaches.)
• Static Electricity – Reduces amount of dust on screen
To eliminate the static electricity you get a wire attached to the monitor which you have to earth on some grounded metal object.
Performance
Well, I can hardly give you a list of Benchmarks for this product! All I can tell you is what I have noticed since it’s been on my monitor. The only major difficulty I have had was with cleaning the screen. After having it for nearly 3 months it accumulated a lot of horrible marks that happen to everyone’s monitor, spit marks, sneeze particles, finger marks etc. Whereas you would usually utilize some handy cleaning product for your monitor, like ‘Alglas Visual’, you can’t with this, as I soon scarily found out. Because it’s plastic it does NOT respond well to the usual cleaners. You should have seen me when I cleaned it the first time, I thought I had ruined it! After much wiping, and the use of a grease remover it finally looked ok (1 hour later!). The instructions say use a “Lint free wipe”, although its effectiveness isn’t so great. All I use now (until I go and find some proper wipes) is warm air and a little of my salvia (GROSS!). It would have been nice for Kensington to include a small trial cleaner especially suited for the screen, so we could see what kind of stuff was suitable.
I can honestly say my health problems have stopped. I can be on the PC almost all day, and I haven’t felt sick nor had a huge headache. I use my PC before going to bed most nights now, and can go to bed and sleep just fine. Hardly ever am I still awake 2 hours after I switch off.
Best of all, if and when experts discover that some monitors aren’t doing much good to your brain due to radiation, at least I am protected now. Ok so this sounds very doom and gloom and paranoid, but I have noticed a great difference in my health, and that’s only in the short term. Who really knows the long term problems yet?
Conclusion
Although some will no doubt say “if I get ill I get ill” and “I’m not spending so much money when I can get two games, or a piece of good hardware”, others who are quite safety conscience, or are prone to being ill after extensive PC usage, should get hold of something like the Kensington SlimScreen. Flexible and non intrusive, as well as very effective, the only big problem that will stop most from a purchase is the high price tag, combined with the fact that that it isn’t exactly a thrilling piece of hardware (It’s as exciting as buying a mouse rest to help your wrist). If it means you can spend more time on the PC, without the worry of your brain being slowly cooked, then I am all for it!
Highs
- Protects against most Radiation and glare
- Can use computer for longer without feeling ill
- Fairly easy to install
- Doesn’t require as much dust cleaning
- Don’t notice it’s even there. Visually it doesn’t intrude.
- Especially for older monitors, may be a good defence against nasty things.
Lows
- Radiation Screens are expensive, this one is no exception
- Not at all easy to clean
- Some will argue it’s not worth the effort or cash
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