h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The instructions say don't clean with anything but water, but it just doesn't get it clean. If it's not dog slobber flicked up on it, it's mud or dogs shaking crap off their fur.

Any tips? If I use just water I just get smeary water marks all over it. I'm not very good at cleaning...

If you have a microfiber cloth, I find that they clean quite well even with only water.
Or maybe dip a cloth in water with just a little detergent, wring out as much as you can, and wipe.
Or a spray of window cleaner on a cloth, and wipe carefully.
I've used all of the above to wipe the screen of my laptop, and as long as it's not wet but only moist cloth, I seem to get away with it...

ok straight from the Manufacturer's mouth: nothing but water
And: if you can just spray the cloth with water, and wipe very very gently
if you get even the tiniest bit of water inside the workings you'll fry the Driver IC

after cleaning with the very slightly damp cloth
wipe with a dry one

but also: when cleaning any kind of LCD screen whatever you do don't press as the glass breaks very easily

(as the guy who was demonstrating our latest hot & sexy panel did as he was telling us not to touch it - and wrecked a beautiful 47" panel within minutes of us carefully taking it out of the packaging)

"If it's not dog slobber flicked up on it, it's mud or dogs shaking crap off their fur.

Any tips? "

Shotgun?

It's not LCD, it's LED.

The damp cloth thing isn't working though, which is why I thought I'd see if anyone else had tried anything else and not broken the telly.

Oh, apparently it is an LCD, which is annoying, as I was trying to buy an LED tv!

As I understand it, LEDs are LCDs anyway but with LED backlighting.

How about Sparkle (other products are available), like you can use on mirrors and glass, etc?

Our LED tv came with a wee cloth in a packet when we bought it 6 months ago. Hasn't been used as the telly isn't dirty enough yet.

It's a bit daft: the LED is only the type of backlighting the LCD panel uses. what is important is not using any abrasive substances (or cloth) and to be gentle. and don't let slobbery, muddy dogs near it

And again: really don't use anything more than a vaguely damp, soft cloth.

That's a depressingly common ripoff, Mina.

You do have an LED TV. You have a TV which has a nice, bright, white LED backlight with an LCD in front of it. It's distinct from the previous kinds of LCD tv which had cold cathode fluorescent lights for backlighting.

Now this CAN mean a better picture, IF the TV does local dimming (i.e. if, in parts of the picture that are supposed to be black, the LEDs in the backlight switch off.) But that can lead to other problems.

What I suspect you WANT is a telly where the actually DISPLAY is made up of LEDs. Which in practice means an OLED display (which stands for Orribly Large Expensive Device... er... Organic Light Emitting Diode).

Good news - two manufacturers are launching 55inch OLED TVs this year. Better news - they make HD look like ZX Spectrum, with a native resolution of 3840 x 2160.

Bad news - they're about six THOUSAND pounds.

Get a plasma.

but if you want to take care of your electricity consumption stay with LED until OLED comes down in price

I can't get a plasma, because we play too many computer games. Although the risk is small, I lived with a purple patch on the CRT TV for the last few years of its life. Not again!

I did get a soft cloth with it, which is what I use,it's not working. Muddy slobbery dogs in the house is my job, this is obviously why I charge a lot of money to have them in my house. Perhaps a new tv, whch I will hang on the wall, near the ceiling!

Thanks Sho, I will resist the temptation to spray pledge on it. And not watch moody dark films, which is usually when the smears show up worst!

I have two 50" plasmas.

One of them is in the lounge, and every single bloody day I come home from work to find that one of the kids has buggered off upstairs or out or somewhere else and left the Sky box on "pause". Seriously, every sodding day. I have not, however, had any problem of burn-in of the pause symbol or any other part of the screen.

The other is in the library/movie/game room. It's connected to a Wii, a PS2, a DVD player and an Xbox 360. The latter is responsible for probably 95% of the images on the screen. I've not had any problems with burn on that, either, and Call of Duty gets a LOT of play in my house.

Modern plasmas are not the burn-prone screens of ten years ago.

yeah but... keep me in a job. Buy LCDs...

If water won't shift the mud and slobber, I think you'd be safe using a cloth very slightly damped with vodka. Use a really cheap vodka with no flavour as it is just alcohol and water.

Nothing wrong wth modern plasmas - you get some ghosting if you;ve had something in the one place for ages e.g. video game HUD or even radio name however it disappears once you turn over to another channel and get everything moving again.

So, I'd agree with Hoo Plasmas are the way to go.

Do not worry about screen-burn the risk is small it's smaller than Kery Katona's shame.

I find microfiber cloths work very well to polish screens. I usually use a dry one unless very dirty. Then I use a slightly damp one.

Still too much of a risk for me.

I've used kitchen sponge cloths to clean all screens, computer and hi-fi equipment, remote controls/ shiny stuff for years. I dab a small amount of washing-up liquid onto it to combat greasy fingerprints, etc. I dampen and squish the cloth several times and to distribute the detergent, then I wring it thoroughly out until no drops of water are released. I also ensure that there is no excess sud foam that can get trapped in the equipment.

I find this works very well indeed, usually repeating a few times to remove suds. The cloths are very soft so don't scratch and only very light pressure is required. All my stuff stays nice and clean, and as long as you ring out well, I can't see much risk of water damage. The method even leaves screens streak-free in bright sunlight.