Red Zombie Tempered Glass Screen Protectors

What: Red Zombie Tempered Glass ‘zombie proof’ Smart Phone Screen Protectors

Where: http://redzombie.com/,  Facebook

Price: $9.99 – $34.99 depending on the device

Rating: Overall – 4.5 Zombie Heads

Feel – 5 Zombie Heads

Durability – 3 Zombie Heads (will revise with more time using it!)

Guarantee – 5 Zombie Heads

Customer Service – 5 Zombie Heads

I first saw Red Zombie at the Salt Lake City Comic Con in September. The logo is eye catching and I had to check them out just because it had the word Zombie in it (A+ for marketing – if I’m in their key demo they hit a bulls-eye with me!). Unfortunately, I still had my iPhone 4S and knew I would be upgrading soon, so I wasn’t about to invest in anything new for its screen. Smash-cut to mid-October and I had my shiny new iPhone 6 in hand and when I was shopping for screen protectors I remembered how cool the Red Zombie product looked. So, I hit their website and a few days later I had one in hand.

One thing that has always annoyed me about the screen protectors is trying to get them on, get them centered, get the air bubbles out, etc. There’s none of that with the tempered glass. It’s rigid so it’s WAY easier to center. Essentially you peel and stick. The caveat – you need to be in a very CLEAN, DUST FREE environment when you do it. One edge the flexible skins have is you can peel up one corner and pick out that dog hair that snuck in at the last second. With the glass you’d have to pick up the whole thing, which I had to do. Twice. After I turned my office into a clean room the third time was the charm and I got it on there with no crap underneath it. The dimensions are laser-precise and the cutouts for the home button, the camera and the earpiece are exactly where they should be.

In terms of feel and usability, it feels like nothing else. It’s as if there’s nothing between you and your phone’s screen. I guess it’s the technological equivalent of the lamb-skin condom – you still have protection but it feels like there’s nothing there (or so I hear). Seriously, the touch factor of the Red Zombie glass can’t be matched by a flexible skin. Apps are SUPER responsive, there’s no finger drag, and no worry about scratching.

Durability, on the other hand, surprised me. I am prone to dropping my phone once in a while. Sometimes I’ll miss the tech pocket on my cargo shorts, or I’ll pull it out and the to half of my case will pop off, and the bottom half (with the phone in it) will hit the bricks. About two months in, I dropped it on the tile floor in the kitchen and the next morning I noticed what looked like the aforementioned dog hair on the screen. I blew on it, but it was still there. I wiped at it, but it didn’t budge. It wasn’t a hair: it was a crack. Looks like I’d be putting their lifetime guarantee to the test.

So, I hit their website and looked up their return policy. It’s pretty standard stuff: send a note with your original order number (one advantage to creating an account rather than checking out as a guest: they had my # on file!) and they’ll send you an RMA. You ship the old one in, they ship the new one back. In my email to them I asked if they could reverse that because I really didn’t want to go without a screen protector for a few days. That night they responded – within a couple of hours of my note, which was nice – and they didn’t even balk at the request. I had a Fedex delivery a couple of days later, popped the cracked one off and put the new one on (got it on the first try this time) and I was back in business. I emailed again thanking them and asked if they wanted the old one back, and they said no – they’re just concerned with providing awesome service. Mission accomplished. I’m guessing if you want your money back because you’re not satisfied they would want the product returned, but that wasn’t the case here.

While I’ve rated them only 3 Zombie Heads for durability, to be fair remember that I did have to pull it off the phone a couple of times to get it installed right, so I may have stressed it, and it hit the tile on one occasion and the concrete patio on another. In short, I’m none too easy on my stuff. I’ll give it some time and update the durability after I see if it cracks again (or not) in the next few months.

They sell the glass for dozens of devices, including the iPad. They also sell the more traditional skins and they sell logo merchandise like hats and sweatshirts too. You know with that logo if you wear the hat you’re going to have people asking about it.

If you’re in the market for a new screen protector for your phone, I think you’ll be very happy with the Red Zombie tempered glass.