Howdy!

In the days following the Peel Glass release, I decided to order it and see if it's good. I've been rocking the Peel case for a while and I'm really happy with it. It made sense to at least try.

Shipping & packaging: This thing will arrive intact. It shipped across the border (US → CA) and I received it in a hard cardboard box that protected the envelope package from any harm. Good to know because I believe continental packages for the Peel case were only a soft envelope, and it caused a lot of shipping damage.

Included are a microfiber cloth, a dust sticker, and a "LCD cleaner" moist towel. There's a nice printed card with instructions to use the cloth, then the dust sticker on your phone's screen before placing the protector and pressing the bubbles away. All together, they do get your screen really clean.

The protector itself is a hard piece of glass, backed with a reasonably strong glue. You peel off a plastic backing, then apply it to the screen. The camera and home button holes make it easy to align.

I applied it to the screen, and it formed a ton of bubbles. No worries, right? Well, contrary to flexible screen protectors, pushing the air out is a very difficult exercise.

The actual issue, though, is that unless you're in an admirably dust-free environment, you'll get tiny particles of dust or lint sticking when you peel off the protector's backing. These make the hard plastic tent around them, and since it's not flexible, it'll never hug small imperfections. So air remains around the tiniest thing.

I probably could have considered myself done with my first try if I accepted seeing around four ~1mm round bubbles on my phone screen. The dust itself was too small to be visible, but the bubbles were very obvious, especially with the screen lit. Honestly, I didn't want this at all. So I pulled the protector off gently (this can be done easily enough – the glue won't do anything bad to your screen) and tried again.

I am a very patient person. All in all, my best attempt in the next 1+ hour left me with two tiny bubbles. This is a product that Peel "wouldn't release until it was perfect". So I myself didn't really want to give up on it until it looked right, but I eventually had to conclude that it wouldn't happen.

Especially considering that an iPhone's screen itself is made of goddamn Gorilla Glass, a protector that expensive shouldn't be a hit-or-miss expense.

If your protector starts out with visual imperfections, then it's also at the day where it's done for and should be replaced. I can't advise anyone to buy this, honestly. At 40 CAD, it makes for a costly lesson :/

TLDR: If you're a careful person, you don't need it. If you tend to scratch your phone often, get something less extravagant.