Surface wear on pen displays

Background

Pen displays (tablets with a screen) come in two varieties

• Those where your pen is making direct contact with the glass surface. Typically these tablets have an "etched glass" surface. See: Etched glass

• Those where your pen is touching a protective film covering the glass and so the pen does not touch the glass directly.

How these surface experience and show wear are different.

Wear on etched glass

Etched glass that is used for append display is highly durable. They are designed to be directly drawn upon with the pens / nibs that the manufacturer also supplies. However, they are not infinitely resistant to damage from various sources. Also different etched glass treatments may have different levels of hardness.

Real-world examples

Example of durability

See this video by David Revoy who is testing the Kamvas Pro 19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9VbiVJX-J4

At 3:32 he performs a scratch test. He tries to deliberately scratch the glass with:

• his car keys

• a small piece of metal

• a hobby knife

His attempts leave some kind of metallic-looking residue on the glass which he can clean off revealing the surface is not scratched.

Counterexamples

On the internet (reddit, eBay, etc/) you can find plenty of people who have accidentally scratched the glass of their tablet (even of the Kamvas Pro 19). Sometimes these scratches appear not while drawing but seemingly during other moments when something has made contact with the tablet - perhaps with more extreme force. And some tablets show scratches for typical.

Below is a picture of a Wacom Cintiq 13 HD which has an etched glass surface. It exhibits a lot of wear. (I do think this is a relatively uncommon and extreme amount)

From this reddit post:https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/zv593v/does_cintiq_13hd_have_screen_protection_see_coment/

Preventing damage to glass

Small particle damage

Some people suggest that small particles of various materials can be on your land on the glass or attach themselves to the nib of the pen. And they suggests that as you draw on the glass with your pen that you might see scratches that are caused not by the pen and nib itself, but by the motion of those small particles as your nib moves them across the surface of the glass.

I cannot say that I have personally experienced this myself. But I do think it is in your best interests to keep the surface of your pen display and your pens clean.

Contact with objects on your hand

Some artists are very careful to remove anything metallic from there hands or wrists when they draw. And I think this is also a very reasonable thing to do to avoid the potential damaging the glass.

Scratches during transport

If you were transporting your pen display you should make sure that the glass is covered by something to protect it during it's journey. I have seen people mentioned that they put their pen display in a backpack but that's some other object in the backpack made contact with and

Screen protectors

Screen protectors on top of the tablet glass naturally protect the glass from damage. One benefit of is that if they do get damaged you can generally replace them.

More: Screen protectors for pen displays

Glass damage is permanent

The glass surface of a pen display is not designed to be removed. In the case of fully laminated pen displays, remember that the glass is bonded to the display panel with the layer of optically clear adhesive (OCA). So in summary the glass you have is going to be there forever.

And anywhere or damage you caused the glass will also be there forever.

I have never seen anyone find anyway to somehow remove any on the glass surface

My experience

I have never scratched the glass of any of my 30+ pen displays - except for the Wacom Movink 13 (DTH-135) which has some kind of AF coating which is known to be "soft" and easily damaged.