AS CORONAVIRUS continues to spread, the thoughts of many have turned to how they can best clean their phones and tablets.

While many of us glued to our phones throughout the day, for both work and leisure reasons, those devices are also picking up a myriad of germs and bacteria.

We've put together this handy guide on how to get your phone clean.

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How to disinfect your phone:

Despite many phones these days being waterproof, you can’t just dump your device in a sink of hot, soapy water and wash it for the length of time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice. But there are other ways you can keep your handset clean.

With phone prices climbing as each new model is released, chances are your device could be worth quite a lot of money, so the key thing is to be careful, as you don’t want to damage it.

  • Start by removing any cases and unplugging any headphones, as well as by turning it off.
  • Avoid making any potential scratches on the screen by using a microfibre cloth, like the cloths that come with a camera kit.
  • You need to be careful if using any heavy chemicals, as they can also potentially remove a chemical coating that many phone manufacturers use to protect the device’s screen.

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What you’ll need:

  • Apple offers the following advice on its website regarding disinfecting your iPhone, “Using a 70 per cent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, you may gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your Apple product, such as the display.”
  • The advice states clearing “don’t use bleach” and to avoid getting any moisture in any of the openings on the device.
  • “Don’t submerge your Apple product in any cleaning agents,” Apple states.

Other sites, however, will advise that using alcohol on your devices can damage the screen, so you’ll need to be careful when deciding how to clean it.

  • At the very least, make sure that any disinfectant wipes you’re using don’t contain bleach or any other abrasive chemicals, as these can damage your phone.
  • For areas like the camera lens and the headphone jack, a dry cotton bud will suffice.
  • Let the phone air dry before putting it back into any cases or plugging it into any chargers.