Our gadgets occasionally need a good wipe down thanks to our junk food stained fingers, and there’s nothing quite as gross as trying to watch your favorite Hulu and Netflix programming through a thin buildup of grease and fingerprints. You might not care to notice, but your iOS devices are probably filthy fingerprint magnets that you’ll rub on a pant leg or sweaty workout t-shirt just to clear away the sweaty fog. Even if it’s not about the germs, your devices deserve to shine unfiltered from any dirt or grime that’s accumulated on those glass displays. Today I’m looking at one amazing little cloth that’ll wipe away the sludge better than any towel or necktie I’ve ever used.
Okay, I’ve never cleaned a gadget with a necktie before, but I have used my t-shirt, bed pillow, couch armrest, pant leg, the ol’ breath and sleeve wipe, and just about any other soft nearby object out of sheer desperation to clean the iPad and iPod touch. A soft towel doesn’t always do the trick either, although it does buff the chrome/steel plating on my iPod touch quite nicely in a jiff. But what if you’re looking for both polish and cleaning all at once? The Toddy Smarth Cloth is just about the smartest cloth I’ve ever used.
When I really need to do some smudge scrubbing, I’d yank out one of those glasses cloths stuffed in my drawer (obtained every time I updated my prescription lenses) and use that to delicately remove any particles from my display. Being a glasses cloth, it often pushed smudges around more than cleaned them, although with some rigorous Mr. Clean style circular hand motions, you’d have a clean gadget and some pretty large biceps by the end of the week.
This Toddy Smart Cloth, however, raised a solid eyebrow. In what normally takes a few minutes of blood, sweat, and elbow grease in cleaning my gadgets to perfection took at most thirty seconds with a clean Toddy. Two wipes on my iPad, and the display looked like it came new out of the box. Two wipes on my iPod touch, and it was sparkling (at least until my bare flesh touched it again). And you can toss this miracle cloth right in your washer with the rest of your frilly things for a quick clean.
Toddy’s Smart Cloth isn’t all roses, although it does a seriously good job of cleaning your gadgets. The Toddy Smart Cloth is a double-sided silk and microfiber cloth that’s for polishing and cleaning your gadgets respectively. Honestly, I found that the microfiber side does both, and that the silk side ended up re-introducing smudges on your iPad since that’s where your greasy palms grip on as you wipe. As for that microfiber side, as long as you keep your Toddy clean it works like a charm. I didn’t think I could be impressed by a cloth, but it’s a damn near effortless cleaning experience. Then again, it could be the result of those large biceps I’ve worked up in the meantime.
The cloths themselves are a little on the pricier side ($15 for a 9” x 9” cloth such as the Y2K variant I reviewed), but they feel absolutely premium in your hand. Personally I wouldn’t mind buying a few and stashing them all over the house, and you’ll get $5 off your purchase of three or more. Still, these little guys will add up after a while if you plan on buying one for each member of your family.
As a tiny towel that’s advertised to be the the premium clean-up cloth after a day of rigorous hand-on-gadget action, the Toddy Smart Cloth is always on duty in a bag, on my dresser, and next to my computer so I can quickly wipe gadgets free of any oil sheen or nacho imprints. Prices vary, but $9 gets you a smaller 5” x 7” cloth, while $15 will get you a 9” x 9” cloth — both come in a variety of colors to match any style.
