For years now smartphones have shipped with strong glass, rated to withstand scratches and dings, and even sometimes rated to survive a few drops. Huawei’s latest flagship, the P10, ships with Gorilla Glass 5, which is the latest in Corning’s arsenal of strong glass made for smart device that see a lot of use. Even still replacing this glass can be incredibly costly if it scratches or breaks, and a few dollars of protection ahead of time can go a long way to saving you serious cash in the long run. Starlook makes a tempered glass protector for the Huawei P10, one that’s rated to withstand just as much pressure and scratching as the built-in glass, all while giving you the easy option of replacing it for only a few dollars. How does this one work on the Huawei P10? Let’s find out.
In the Box
For the price of what some companies charge for a single screen protector, Starlook includes two tempered glass protectors in the box. Also included is a small paper pouch containing the tools necessary to get the screen installation done correctly; a wet wiped moistened with rubbing alcohol to help remove oils and other contaminates, a microfiber cloth for drying the screen off and getting dust off, and a dust absorbing sticker for grabbing those last little bits off of the screen before final installation.
Installation
Installation of the Starlook tempered glass protector on the Huawei P10 is simple, and similar to others out there. Installation starts by wiping the screen down with the included wet pads, helping to remove grease and other contaminates that might impair the screen protector from sticking. Afterwards, drying it off with the micro fiber cloth helps remove any fingerprints and other bits from the screen. Finally the included dust absorber sticker is exactly what it sounds like; a sticker that helps remove those stubborn bits of dust that won’t come off with the wet or dry cloths.
Installing the screen protector is a little difficult, part of which is because there’s no place to grab the protector once the film has been removed. This makes it particularly difficult because the Huawei P10 has a slight curve on the edge of its display, meaning the screen protector lines up exactly with the edges of the screen, right down to a fraction of a millimeter. This shows how accurately the screen protector has been made, but it forced me to remove the protector a number of times during the installation before I could align it perfectly.
Keeping the screen on during installation helps line up the protector with it, and given how accurately the whole piece is shaped, it’s simple enough to line the top and bottom edges up to the home button on bottom and earpiece up top. There were a few bubbles under the glass after installation, however simply pressing on them and pushing them towards the edge removed them. These will also work their way out over the course of a few hours if there are some particularly stubborn bubbles. Also note that the edges don’t appear to stick initially, however after just a few hours the edges smoothed out and fit perfectly on the phone.
Design and Durability
At first the screen protector looks like it doesn’t quite fit the phone itself, coming a few millimeters from the edges of all sides. Part of the issue here, as stated in the installation section, is that the Huawei P10 features slight curves to the edges of its front panel glass. This means a flat glass protector can’t reach the edges, and as such looks a bit strange. Also odd looking is the top, where the glass isn’t cut to the exact size of the earpiece. Once again this has a good explanation; the proximity sensor sits to the left of the earpiece, between it and the camera, and cannot be covered with the glass without the possibility of causing issues.
So too you’ll find the bottom doesn’t quite cover all the way around the home button, as the glass edge below the button is significantly more curved than the sides. What’s important to note though is that this screen protector is thinner than the vast majority of screen protectors out there. At 0.2mm thin the tempered glass protector is barely noticeable on the phone, outside of the seemingly strange shape at first, and because the edges of the tempered glass protector have a slight curve to them they feel even less like they aren’t a part of the phone. The curve at the very edge of the glass is smooth to the touch and makes it feel more like a natural extension of the glass on the phone.
Being this thin also helps with touch sensitivity, as laying anything over top of a phone’s touch-sensitive capacitive screen always runs the risk of causing that touch to be less sensitive. Being primarily a component designed to provide additional protection for your phone, it’s important that the tempered glass protector keep from getting easily scratched. In a series of tests with common objects we found that keys, knives, sticks, plastic pieces and even edges of furniture wouldn’t scratch the screen no matter how hard we pressed. The only thing we were able to scratch the protector with were rough stones, something that shouldn’t normally come in contact with the phone in the first place.
Drop protection is also a concern, and while the Starlook tempered glass protector only covers the front of the phone, when used in conjunction with a case it helps provide 360-degree protection for the phone. Huawei ships the P10 with a simple clear plastic protector; one that features a slight lip on the left and right sides of the phone to attempt to protect against small drops. The thin nature of the Starlook tempered glass protector once again proves to be essential, as it lines up perfectly with these slight lips on the included case. This means drops will come into contact with the case first, and particularly bad ones will hit the tempered glass protector second. A straight drop on the floor didn’t prove fatal for the protector, but even one that shatters the tempered glass protector means the screen underneath it didn’t break, and that’s the whole point of having something like this. Having two protectors included in the box also helps with any replacements that might need to be done, adding more value to the package.
Conclusion
While the Starlook tempered glass protector for the Huawei P10 doesn’t come to all edges, its the curved nature of Huawei’s glass that makes this happen, not the protector itself. This also means that the highest points of the glass, or the parts most susceptible to breaking, are 100% covered by the tempered glass protector, and when used in conjunction with even the case Huawei includes in the P10’s box grants sufficient protection to your phone. The hardness of the tempered glass protector also means extra protection from scratches, only being scratched by the roughest of rocks and not by any common objects that would normally come in contact with the phone. At this price it’s absolutely a no-brainer to pick up a package of these tempered glass protectors for your phone, as they not only protect against scratches and feel no different from the phone’s display, but also help protect against drops and shattering. Grab a pair at the link below!
Buy The Starlook Tempered Glass Screen Protector For The Huawei P10