The same question pops up many times on the forum, "do I need a screen protector?". During our Nokia N97 stress tests we give the screen quite a hammering, trying to scratch it with the stylus, coins and a key and yet it remained scratch free.

But many of our users have found their screen has become scratched with general usage. Most of the reports are of faint spider scratches but scratches none-the-less. So contrary to what I said about not needing a screen protector, I recommend fitting a screen protector just incase, it's an expensive bit of kit afterall. Though these hairline scratches are only visible in certain lighting conditions and aren't going to bother everybody but I know for sure they'd drive me mad.

I have no idea why our screen didn't scratch during the tests, because we applied a fair bit of pressure with the key and during the pocket test, it was shook vigorously. Perhaps the lighting was wrong and there were hairline scratches on the screen. I'll double check tomorrow and let you all know. Though there were certainly not any deeper scratches which would be visible in any light.

There are many screen protectors available, one of the most popular appears to be invisibleSHIELD for the N97. Check out the forum discussion to see what other users think of it and for alternative solutions.