Neato

Company	:	Moshi
Price	:	US$16
Rating	:

What do you use to clean your Mac's screen? Tissue? Well, if you start to notice tiny scratches after a while you only have yourself to blame.

Moshi's neato is a pair of cleaning pads developed specifically for cleaning flat panels and TFT/LCD screens. Made from Terahedron cloth, each square pad measures 5cm and is wrapped around a flexible sticky gel called the GeckoPad. This allows the pads to cling to areas around your screen, when you're done cleaning, without leaving sticky residues.

The two pads have different functions: the grey pad is used for wiping off dust particles and the black one is for removing fingerprints and grease marks.

I tested neato on my old extra greasy iMac G4 which was full of my children's fingerprints. The grey pad did it's job well enough but the black pad didn't seem to get rid of the stains even after I increased pressure in scrubbing. Then I read the instructions which stated that getting rid of stubborn stains required the pad to be slightly damp with water. So with one or two dabs of water and a light scrub my 6-year old iMac screen was as good as new.

Cleaning the pads is easy enough. Simply rinse them in water once they get a little grimy. However, extra pads are included in the pack, so you can be assured that buying one box of neato will go a long way.

What do I like about the neato? Well, it does what it sets out to do: clean your screen easily and without scratching it. The pads are small and easy to carry around and easily cling around or behind your iMac's screen when not in use. The square shape makes it easy to clean screen corners.

The minus points: The sticky gel can be a little annoying if you don't intend to use it to stick to your screen. I left the backing plastic on as I was cleaning because I didn't like the sticky feeling. US$16 for a 'cleaning cloth' can seem a little steep. But you do get a couple of spare pads.

I do like the neato but I wonder if the function of the two pads couldn't be combined as one. It would be more convenient to carry around just one cleaning cloth. Also the sticky gel thing is something that needs getting used to.

Moshi products are distributed in Malaysia by ESSI Asia Sdn Bhd. Click here for a list of Moshi resellers.