- Most Important: Don't Break It
- Keep Your PSP Clean
- Care for PSP Media and Headphones
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Keep Your PSP Clean
One problem with the PSP is that its entire front panel is very smooth and very shiny. You may notice that whenever you touch it while you're not wearing surgical gloves, you leave visible fingerprints.
If you are anything like me, that annoys the holy heck out of you. I hate stuff on my display screens: a computer CRT, a laptop LCD, a television set, or a PSP. Dust, smudges, and crusty stuff deposited by my children's fingers make me insane. The first thing I learned to do to a PSP was clean it. Everything else had to wait.
When the screen was nice and clean and polished, I proceeded to play games. To this day, I clean that thing almost every time I pick it up. One speck of dust can ruin the entire experience for me.
Yeah, I know. I need help.
Clean the Screen
I've tried all kinds of things on the screen, including diluted rubbing alcohol, diluted Windex, and distilled water. Most of that stuff left smudges. I tried polishing the screen with facial tissues (not the kind with lotion, of course), soft cloths, scraps of cotton T-shirts, and other stuff.
After all that experimenting, I tried something novel. I used the same stuff I use to clean my glasses: a gentle, oil-removing lens cleaner, which comes with a microfiber cloth perfect for polishing sensitive materials. It worked far better than anything else I tried.
Thus, to clean the screen, I recommend jumping into the car or onto the bike, heading over to the optical section of your favorite superstore or to an eyeglass shop, and purchasing a glasses-cleaning kit. I'm serious. Make sure that the included cloth is microfiber. Ask the sales-person to be sure.
Then head on home and clean your PSP's screen. Follow these steps:
- Use a tissue or soft cloth to wipe any dust and crumbs off the PSP surface.
- Spray a tiny amount of lens cleaner onto the PSP screen (Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1 Squirt just a touch of lens cleaner onto the PSP screen.
With the microfiber cloth, wipe in little circles all over the surface of the screen.
Make sure that you wipe all the lens cleaning solution off the screen (Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2 Wipe off all the lens cleaner when you finish cleaning.
- Polish the PSP screen with a dry part of the microfiber cloth, using moderate pressure and wiping in little circles (Figure 3.3).
Figure 3.3 Polish the screen with a dry part of the microfiber cloth.
Check for any smudges by holding the PSP up so that you catch some glare off the screen (Figure 3.4).
Figure 3.4 Get some glare on the screen to check for smudges.
If it looks sparkly-clean, you're done. If not, repeat steps 2 through 4.
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Clean the Rest of the PSP
Although the screen can certainly get dirty, so can the rest of your PSP. Your fingers touch the buttons and controls, and the back of the unit, all the time. Sometimes, you'll want to clean the nooks and crannies between the buttons, or you may want to clean the plastic casing on the rear of the unit.
To clean between the buttons, I suggest cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol (a 75 percent solution like you find in the drugstore will do nicely).
Simply splash a very small amount of rubbing alcohol onto the cottony end of a cotton swab, and go to town. Scrub between and around the buttons (Figure 3.5). When you're done, flip the cotton swab and blot up any excess fluid with the dry end, or do the blotting with a fresh swab.
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Figure 3.5 Scrub between the buttons with cotton swabs.
You can clean the plastic casing with a spritz of all-purpose cleaner such as Windex and a soft, white cotton cloth. Be sure to spray the cleaner onto the cloth, not onto the PSP itself. Spray just a bit of cleaner onto the cloth, and gently scrub away any foreign substances, smudges, and other junk (Figure 3.6).
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Figure 3.6 Be gentle when you scrub the rear of the unit.