I am an assiduous hand-washer but even so I notice that my keyboards and touchscreens get fairly dirty. When Which? hired a hygiene expert to check out a sample of 30 mobile phones, they were found to be on average 18 times more packed with harmful germs that a men's toilet handle so cleaning one's gadgets makes good sense.
I tried two products from Cyber Clean.
Touch Screen Cleaner (£15)
To get rid of bacteria just use the antiseptic spray on the screen and then wipe clean with the back of the pen – very much like cleaning windows. If your screen isn't very sticky, don't use the spray. This can be used on laptop and desktop screens as well as tablets and smartphones. The spray lasts for up to 320 applications.
It's really easy to use and the "pen" comes with three refills plus incorporates a stylus so you can avoid fingers on your touchscreens if you so wish.
PWT rating: ♥♥♥♥♥
Cleaning Compound (£5)
The Cleaning Compound is a putty that, with its antiseptic cleaning power, is said to eliminate 99.9 per cent of germs. All you have to do, according to the instructions, is mould the putty into your keyboard, on your remote and so on and peel off to remove all the dirt and germs.
Not only does it make everything more hygienic for little explorers, but it also reaches those hard to reach areas without causing damage. The putty is a bit like Play-Doh but feels stickier and I found this product less effective or rather more difficult to use. Maybe my keyboard was too dirty to begin with but the Cleaning Compound certainly didn't remove all the dirty marks. I had to attack those with a cloth and then reapply the "putty". In the end my keyboard looked very clean.
However I used the Cleaning Compound on my landline phones and remotes with more success and they looked sparkling clean.
PWT rating: ♥♥♥♥♥