Feature: Gadget Inspector

Gadget Review: The Toddy Smart Cloth

It’s no dumb rag.

By , Columnist

Toddy Gear.

If there is one thing that really annoys me, it’s that greasy finger mark I see every time I sit down to watch my Samsung LCD TV. Aaargh! I just want to scream every time I see it. Not only is it a sign of imperfection on my I-want-it-to-be-pristine screen, it’s impossible to explain how it got there. I have to find a way to get rid of it.

But how? This is not some cheap, old-school CRT TV we’re talking about. This is an expensive piece of modern technology. Touching the screen feels like the next worst thing you could do besides accidentally recording a porn site in your Internet browsing history. After years of being indoctrinated in the belief that LCD screens are as fragile as a Ming vase, I have never dared breathe on them, let alone clean them.

That is, until I received a Toddy Smart Cloth.

The Toddy Smart Cloth, or Toddy for short, is made by Toddy Gear, which advertises it as ‘perfect’ for cleaning tablets, smart phones, laptops, TVs, desktop computers, digital (and presumably old fashioned) cameras, gaming devices, glasses and GPS units. It is about the size of a paperback book cover and unlike most of the stuff that comes across my desk, there is not a whole lot of technology that is obvious on the outside (well, it is a cloth).

What is apparent on the surface is that the Toddy has two different...,well, surfaces. Each is made of a microfiber material designed to be gentle on the kind of scratch-prone material that we love our gadgets to be made of but that we hate to mark. On one side the Toddy has a plush microfiber material that feels a bit like a slightly rough hand towel. The other side is made of a silk microfiber that is soft to the touch.

The surfaces are hydrophilic, which means they absorb water, oils and dust. They are also protected by AEGIS’ trademarked Microbe Shield antibacterial coating. That is reassuring if you have a sensitive immune system. For everyone else it means you can rest assured that you won’t catch a disease if you clean the TV after watching The Andromeda Strain.

I won’t claim to have tested the Toddy on all the devices its manufacturer recommends it for. The sensual silky side did buff up my iPhone nicely, though, and the rougher, more roguish side got rid of many of the greasy marks contaminating the screen of that Samsung TV. It also took the dust off my laptop screen so I could see to write this review.

Never mind all the practical stuff, though: What makes the Toddy Smart Cloth really smart is its cool styling. If you need an excuse to discard those pieces of ripped up underpants you clean your tech with, here it is. Toddy’s Smart Cloth comes in a variety of colorful patterns. Moreover, it is washable and both stain and wrinkle resistant, so it should go on looking like a swanky hanky for a long time.

Toddy Smart Cloths are available from the online Toddy Shop and sell for a reasonable price of $9.99. Sure, they are more expensive than a ShamWow and a bottle of Windex but they are also much kinder to your kit and a heck of a lot more chic.

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About the author

Michael Simpson is a freelance writer, editor, presenter, researcher, instructor, gadget freak and sci-tech consultant based in British Columbia’s beautiful Okanagan Valley. Formerly from the UK, he’s converted from tea to coffee and written and presented on film, TV, science, nature, technology,…

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