Is keyboard cover necessary for laptop?

I do use one a Moshi ClearGuard though I never did on any of my five previous Apple notebooks. I got one for this MBP because it's much harder to clean under these keys than it was with any of my earlier Powerbooks, and because the finish of these keys shows use and wear very quickly. Because I've had a protector on it from the moment it came out of the box, my keyboard looks brand new after eight months of use.

That said, you certainly don't need a protector if you don't want one. As far as appearance goes, I had an ordinary silicone protector at first, and it made my typing clumsy and obscured the backlit keycaps very annoyingly. The much thinner and clearer Moshi protector is nearly invisible [most people don't notice it at all] and has no effect on my typing.

More Less

No residue at all. It isn't held in place by anything but gravity; there's no "stickum" involved. I never take it off except to wash it every three or four weeks. Being thinner than any other protector on the market, it makes minimal contact with the screen when closed, though there is some transfer of skin oils to the glass from a few keys. My thicker silicone protector touched the screen all over and left lots more oils on it, but even that protector didn't interfere with closing the display properly if anything, it probably provided a slight extra cushion for the glass in case of impact. As for cleaning off the oils that do get on it, the glass is far easier to clean well than any of the matte screens I've had in the past. [But my wife, who can't wash a window properly and never intends to learn how as long as she's married to me, would never agree that a glossy screen is easy to clean!]

More Less

Actually, in the case of a real spill, a keyboard protector won't help at all. Your speaker grilles and the crevices around the trackpad and the power button are wide open and exposed all the time, and the recess surrounding the keyboard will drain any spill directly into the machine's innards unless you're careful to spill only in the center of the protector, and only a little bit there. So unless you're the world's most judicious spiller, don't count on a keyboard protector for any help keeping liquids out of your MBP. The best protection is, as you say, keeping them far away from it and at a lower elevation.

More Less

IMO, a keyboard protector is a very good idea. I have the newest model MBP17. To protect the keyboard, I tore off a sheet of Saran Premium clear plastic wrap and, using a ruler and razor blade, cut the plastic wrap into a sheet measuring 4-5/8 by 11-3/8 inches. Using the same rule and razor blade, I sliced a piece of clear Scotch tape into two 11-3/8 by 3/16 inch pieces. I positioned the plastic wrap so that is just touches the edges of the depression [top, bottom, left and right] where the low-profile MBP keyboard resides. I attached one tape strip to the long side of the plastic wrap nearest to the display. That tape strip sits on the flat aluminum surface next to the point where the top surface curves downward to create the depression where the keyboard resides. The second tape strip is placed on the other long side of the plastic wrap, next to the track pad. Give the plastic a gentle tug to make it uniformly taut and flat, then press the tape onto the aluminum surface that separates the keyboard and the trackpad. If you do it right, the plastic wrap remains taut, barely touches to tops of the keycaps and is essentially invisible. Illuminated keys continue to shine bright. If you really want to seal the keyboard, apply 3/16-inch wide tape strips to the left and right side of the plastic. I don't do that. Saran Premium performs well; it remains flat, yet "gives" just enough when you press down on a key, so that no pressure is applied to the adjacent keys. Voila...

You shouldn't need to clean your keycaps or dislodge muffin crumbs from between the keys for a long, long time. And you can replace your makeshift keyboard protector with ease.

Estimated cost: $0.02

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes or less [how does that compare to searching for and purchasing a $30 silicone keyboard protector on Ebay, not to mention waiting days for delivery?].

Satisfaction level: high to very high

More Less