Seriously, they do. You may think you like bubbles, but as soon as you see them dotted all over your new phone screen they tend to lose their lovely magical ambience. No, I wasn’t talking about getting washing up liquid all over your smart new phone, but in fact screen protectors.

They can be an absolute nightmare to fit, I’ve had customers tell me they’ve spent hours over fitting other brands — seriously! It doesn’t have to be this way there is hope. But what type of screen protector do you go for? Think the pack of 10 screen protectors for 99p down your local market will be better value than the 1 for £10 from a better-known manufacture? Well, that all depends on how well you value your time, because if you get the pack of 10 I bet you’ll use most of them and spend a while doing it. Basically if you want perfect results in a reasonable time frame, it’s best to spend around the £5-£10 mark.

Now, how do you go about getting this near invisible piece of plastic to attach to your phone screen and remain near invisible? You’ll find that more often than not, the more patience you give yourself, the less you’ll need. First, familiarize yourself with the screen protector on your screen, note any cut outs for buttons or sensors and just practice aligning everything up.

Once you’re happy with how it should go, start cleaning the screen. Get a good lint-free cloth to clean the screen so you don’t leave any bits behind. Once it’s speckless, you can start to peel back a little of the ‘step 1’ tab of your screen protector and begin to align this with the corresponding edge on your screen. It can take a few attempts, so just gently lift it off and re-attach if you get it wrong.

Once it seems to be level and correctly positioned, you can start to peel more off the ‘step 1’ layer and lay the rest of the screen protector, chasing out any bubbles with a credit card or your fingers as you go. Once this is smoothed out, carefully peel off the ‘Step 2’ protective layer to reveal the protectors fresh surface, be aware not to lift up the actual screen protector itself though during this bit.

If you get any annoying bubbles that stubbornly outstay their welcome, it’s probably because of trapped dust. If so, lift the protector back up a little and get some good quality sticky tape to dab off the bits of dust from the underside of your screen protector. Repeat as necessary, and remember not to touch the underside of the protector with anything other than tape; your fingers or a cloth will leave marks and dust.

So there you have it, a virtually invisible screen protector. If after all this it’s not looking invisible, just contact where you purchased it from to send you another… if they don’t — it’s time to buy an Expert Shield with a lifetime warranty ;-). I hope that helps everyone who’s had problems with screen protectors in the past.

Guest post written by Ed Tyson of Expert Shield UK Ltd – A little note also from Ed – Thank you to Mark for letting me publish my (limited!) knowledge on Phones Review.co.uk Please take a look below at some of the best selling screen protectors –