Cleaning your LCD monitor

We spent tons of money these days buying ultra wide monitors. So, how does one go about cleaning it and how often? Some said that ideally we should leave the screen alone, as wiping might damage the coating. Is it as susceptible to simple wipes with water? And if we leave them alone, the dirt is going to accumulate and made it worse over the months. So, what are your best practices?

I would follow the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Here are Apple’s:

Then use the cloth that came with your display or another soft, dry cloth to wipe dust from the screen.

They recommend dry cloth which is hard to wipe off fingerprints or dirt that accumulates.

Yes and no.

Dampen a soft, lint-free cloth with water only, then use it to clean the computer’s screen.

In other terms: You can use water, but the lint-free cloth must not be soaking wet.

With the glass surface of my Macbook Pro and my iMac, I do it exactly that way and I have no issues to get it clean. If there is to much grease, I add ROGGE DUO Clean (German product to clean displays). I have been using the ROGGE cleaner also for my iPads for years.

At work, I have two DELL displays. To be honest, I have ruined the surface/coating of those two (only by using water and a damp cloth, but the displays had been quite warm when I had cleaned them). I am not able to get them 100% clean. If they are switched off, I can see the results of my previous cleaning efforts… :wink: They have no glass surface so that they are much harder to clean.

Are you saying we should let the display cool down before cleaning them?

I think it depends on the coating and on the surface. I never had any issues to clean an Apple product. It did not matter if it was an Macbook Pro, an iMac, an iPad or an iPhone. But like I said, I ruined my DELL displays at work (cheap ones) while cleaning them. The moisture of the cloth dried basically right on the screen (to be clear: I had been using only water when it happened) and reacted with the coating so that I still can see my previous cleaning traces when the displays are turned off and if I look at the displays under bright light and from an angle. Not pretty.

So, I would prefer cleaning a display when it is cooled down, if you want to be on the safe side and if you are using a dampened cloth. Again, I am not talking about built-in displays of Apple products. I never had any issues to clean them whatsoever.

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Since the late 90s I’ve used iKlear, which I believe Apple used to stock in the first Apple Stores as well. You can get it in a spray bottle with a chamois, and one bottle can last for many years. But I’ve found the ‘travel singles’ to be more convenient overall.

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I do get nervous about using any sort of chemical except plain ol’ tap water … and that is the reason I asked about frequency as well. I am guessing if I clean it once a month, I don’t have to much grime/dust pile up to need a chemical cleaner.