What’s lurking on your laptop? Here’s how to banish bacteria and give pathogens the push

We hope you’re not eating while you read this, because we’ve got a horrible fact for you. A typical laptop keyboard is covered with 20,000 times more bacteria than you’d find on a toilet seat.

Sorry.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, this time of year is boom time for bugs. With kids going back to school and commuters cramming themselves into carriages, this is the time of year most likely to build bacteria and spread sniffles. From desk-bound lunches to colleagues’ coughs, your keyboard’s under constant attack.

Wouldn’t it be great if your laptop keyboard could clean itself? 

ASUS keyboards can.

Banish the bugs with this clever keyboard coating

With ASUS Antibacterial Guard, you can say bye-bye to bugs, bacteria and other irritants. Available in 80% of all ASUS laptops from the Vivobook S to the Vivobook Pro and the upcoming Zenbook models, ASUS Antibacterial Guard is a long-lasting keyboard treatment that protects your laptop from bacteria for over three years in everyday usage.

The secret? Silver. ASUS Antibacterial Guard uses positively-charged silver ions to coat your laptop with a substance that’s irresistible to irritants. Once they touch the surface, the silver ions pierce their protective layer, damaging their structure to prevent them from spawning. In super-strict industry standard ISO 22196 tests, ASUS Antibacterial Guard reduced the number of bacteria by over 99%. 

ASUS Antibacterial Guard isn’t just applied to the keys. It’s also applied to all the most-touched parts of your laptop including the touchpad or number keys, the palm rest area, the power button and the fingerprint sensor. 

That’s bad news for bugs but brilliant for you and your family.

Why people care about clean keyboards

We’re spending more time on our computers than ever before. 97% of us use a PC daily, and the average time we spend online is over 3 hours a day. That’s a lot of contact between your skin and your keyboard, and unfortunately that means your keys are a major breeding ground for bacteria. In tests, laptop keyboards weren’t just full of more bacteria than a toilet seat, they also had more bacteria than a phone, a mouse, a touch pad or cash too.

One of the reasons laptop keyboards get so grimy is because they’re designed to be lugged around, so - for example - a student’s laptop might be used at home, in a lecture theatre, in a library and in the park during a very short period; a work laptop might be in the office, in clients’ premises, in a coffee shop and on a train before going home with you for some additional work at home. The more you travel the more you’re exposed to, and the more likely you are to have unpleasantness lurking on your laptop.

The best thing about ASUS Antibacterial Guard is that you don’t have to think about it. There’s no need to do anything; it just gets on with the job of destroying bacteria such as E.Coli and Staphylococcus – some of the most common bugs in circulation – while you get on with work or studying. And if you ever notice your laptop’s getting a little grubby, it’s safe to use your normal cleaning sprays or wipes without damaging the antibacterial coating.

How to get ASUS Antibacterial Guard

First of all, look for the ASUS logo or brand name: Antibacterial Guard is exclusive to ASUS and only available on ASUS laptops. 

It couldn’t be easier to identify a laptop with ASUS Antibacterial Guard protection: every laptop with the technology will have the ASUS Antibacterial Guard sticker on its palm rest, and on the relevant page on any retailers’ website too. 

Look for the tech specs section or product page overview if the retailer hasn’t included ASUS Antibacterial Guard in the headline features, because of course ASUS laptops are positively packed with great features and the retailer can’t highlight them all. 

Whether you’re eating lunch at your desk, travelling from customer to customer or trying to juggle childcare with home working, ASUS Antibacterial Guard banishes the bugs to keep your laptop hygienically clean.

Click here to find out more about ASUS Antibacterial Guard and discover which ASUS laptop is your perfect partner.