When a cloth beats a blast

Two kinds of dirt

Everything on a piece of gear is either sitting on it or bonded to it. Crumbs, hair, lint, pet fur and grit are sitting on it, and a stream of gas removes them instantly. Skin oil, cooking film, hairspray and the mark a fingertip leaves are bonded, and a stream does nothing to them at all.

People who feel let down by a duster on a monitor are almost always looking at the second kind. The can worked exactly as designed and the screen still looks bad, because what was making it look bad was never loose.

The order matters more than the tools

Blow first, wipe second, always. Grit on glass is abrasive, and a cloth dragged over it is a cloth grinding it in a straight line across the coating.

Do it the other way round and the screen looks clean under room light and shows a set of fine parallel marks the first time the sun catches it. Those do not come out.

Which cloth for what

A microfiber cloth, dry, handles most displays on its own once the dust is gone. The shammy has more grip and suits a display that has been smeared rather than dusted. Moist wipes are for a touchscreen that has had a day of fingers on it, where dry wiping just spreads the film.

Whatever is wet goes on the cloth and never on the panel. Screens have edges, edges have gaps, and anything that runs down the glass ends up behind it where you cannot reach.

Looking after the cloth

Microfiber works because of the shape of the fibers, and it stops working when those fibers are loaded with what they have already collected. Wash it, skip the fabric softener entirely, and let it air dry.

Keep the screen cloth for screens. A cloth that has been used on a workbench is a cloth carrying grit, and it belongs nowhere near a display.

What the kits are for

The laptop, keyboard and tablet kits exist because this job is two tools and people kept buying one. Each one puts a duster, a cloth and the swabs in a single box, sized around a single machine.

If you already keep cans around, the cloths and wipes are on the same shelf on their own. The kit is a convenience, not a different quality of cloth.