Review # 1: Guardfilm.com
Like almost every other psp owner, I have an obsession with keeping my little black beauty in perfect condition. When I looked up screen protectors I found a review of the Invisible Shield. As I was reading the comments, one of them by an obvious marketer named "podster"(Who just so happens to be on pretty much every review of Invisible Shields comments delivering the same message) wrote about guardfilm.com. Supposedly IS and this product are made of the same material.
So I went to their site. WOW! 5.99 w/ free shipping for an Invisible Shield? I'm in. Ordered one immediately and awaited my results. So the day I got it, I went through my usual application method. First I put warm water in a tuba ware and then I put 1 drop of conditioner free shampoo. I then cover this and turn on my shower and watch it steam up. After it has steamed up, I turn it off and wait until the steam has subsidized. The instructions say to dump the protector with the backing into the tub and so I did. After I peeled off the D-Pad, Button, and analog nub parts from the protector. Then I peeled off the protector and dunked it into my solution. Slapped it onto my PSP and viola!
>.....
The end result was less than desirable. The protector took an unusually long time to stick and slid around for a good 15 minutes before I could use my credit card as a squeegee. After I did that I turned my baby on and what do I see? Fog. Apparently the adhesive needs to dry so I leave it for 24 and hours and come back to basically the same thing just without light being reflected off the adhesive, just a layer of goo in between me and my PSP
. I immediately ripped off the protector as I would rather have to face changing my faceplate later on than dealing with this mess. Plus, as a bonus, I got stuck with some leftover adhesive to clean off my PSP. Compared to IS, this product is thin and it uses some kind of crappy adhesive. I do NOT recommend this.
Score: 3/10 While it does its job to protect the full face of the PSP, it does the job horridly.
Review # 2: BestSkinsEver.com (applied the same way as above)
After the lackluster performance of guardfilm, I was beginning to think this was a bad idea. At the moment, I had a perfectly fine PSP, why take the chances with another off-brand? Well, the BestSkinsEver can be found for 5.99 w/ 2 dollar shipping to where I was in the US. So for the price of 7.99 how does it stack up? Actually, this one is pretty much a carbon copy of IS. Seems to be the exact same material and overall it is great. On the first one I used when I put it on I was worried about a small piece of lint and a few horizontal scratches that were already present on the protector. After a few hours the lint and scratches all disappeared with my room lighting. Wow, I thought, this is pretty amazing. So I take it around and notice with the other lighting I can see the scratches. So I email them thanking them for the great product and I mention the scratches and how do they reply. Well, basically, they said the scratches I was seeing were a manufacturing defect and that they were sending me another one! Kick-ass!
So I received the second one and stripped the first one off. Finally, I thought, a perfect PSP. Well, the end result was less than perfect. The one they sent me for replacement actually had more pre-existing scratches than the first one. Plus, it had a few that were so deep that even after it dried I could see them no matter what lighting I had. Here I am with a great protector on the first one and then I get this POS as a replacement? Right now I'm still waiting to see if they are going to send me another replacement or not. If they don't, I'll just revert back to Invisible Shield.
*Edit:* Forgot to mention that the BestSkinsEver is already has all the extra material removed for you and is a lot easier to peel than guardfilm.com
*UPDATE* Score 8/10 Does the job better than guardfilm.com, and if you get one with minimal scratching, its almost perfect. I recommend not telling them about these if you're happy as they might send you an even worse replacement. Bumped the score to an 8 because they just sent me three more screen protectors. Shows they are commited to providing a great product. 5 protectors for 7.99? Wow!
Like almost every other psp owner, I have an obsession with keeping my little black beauty in perfect condition. When I looked up screen protectors I found a review of the Invisible Shield. As I was reading the comments, one of them by an obvious marketer named "podster"(Who just so happens to be on pretty much every review of Invisible Shields comments delivering the same message) wrote about guardfilm.com. Supposedly IS and this product are made of the same material.
So I went to their site. WOW! 5.99 w/ free shipping for an Invisible Shield? I'm in. Ordered one immediately and awaited my results. So the day I got it, I went through my usual application method. First I put warm water in a tuba ware and then I put 1 drop of conditioner free shampoo. I then cover this and turn on my shower and watch it steam up. After it has steamed up, I turn it off and wait until the steam has subsidized. The instructions say to dump the protector with the backing into the tub and so I did. After I peeled off the D-Pad, Button, and analog nub parts from the protector. Then I peeled off the protector and dunked it into my solution. Slapped it onto my PSP and viola!
>.....
The end result was less than desirable. The protector took an unusually long time to stick and slid around for a good 15 minutes before I could use my credit card as a squeegee. After I did that I turned my baby on and what do I see? Fog. Apparently the adhesive needs to dry so I leave it for 24 and hours and come back to basically the same thing just without light being reflected off the adhesive, just a layer of goo in between me and my PSP
. I immediately ripped off the protector as I would rather have to face changing my faceplate later on than dealing with this mess. Plus, as a bonus, I got stuck with some leftover adhesive to clean off my PSP. Compared to IS, this product is thin and it uses some kind of crappy adhesive. I do NOT recommend this.Score: 3/10 While it does its job to protect the full face of the PSP, it does the job horridly.
Review # 2: BestSkinsEver.com (applied the same way as above)
After the lackluster performance of guardfilm, I was beginning to think this was a bad idea. At the moment, I had a perfectly fine PSP, why take the chances with another off-brand? Well, the BestSkinsEver can be found for 5.99 w/ 2 dollar shipping to where I was in the US. So for the price of 7.99 how does it stack up? Actually, this one is pretty much a carbon copy of IS. Seems to be the exact same material and overall it is great. On the first one I used when I put it on I was worried about a small piece of lint and a few horizontal scratches that were already present on the protector. After a few hours the lint and scratches all disappeared with my room lighting. Wow, I thought, this is pretty amazing. So I take it around and notice with the other lighting I can see the scratches. So I email them thanking them for the great product and I mention the scratches and how do they reply. Well, basically, they said the scratches I was seeing were a manufacturing defect and that they were sending me another one! Kick-ass!
So I received the second one and stripped the first one off. Finally, I thought, a perfect PSP. Well, the end result was less than perfect. The one they sent me for replacement actually had more pre-existing scratches than the first one. Plus, it had a few that were so deep that even after it dried I could see them no matter what lighting I had. Here I am with a great protector on the first one and then I get this POS as a replacement? Right now I'm still waiting to see if they are going to send me another replacement or not. If they don't, I'll just revert back to Invisible Shield.
*Edit:* Forgot to mention that the BestSkinsEver is already has all the extra material removed for you and is a lot easier to peel than guardfilm.com
*UPDATE* Score 8/10 Does the job better than guardfilm.com, and if you get one with minimal scratching, its almost perfect. I recommend not telling them about these if you're happy as they might send you an even worse replacement. Bumped the score to an 8 because they just sent me three more screen protectors. Shows they are commited to providing a great product. 5 protectors for 7.99? Wow!
