Like some new-found lover, the touch screen friendly Glider Gloves promise to keep you warm without cramping your style. Will they be true to their word and become a long-term keeper, or is this just another weekend tryst roused by empty promises? Get the intimate details in our full review below.
Anyone living north of 40 has resorted to – at one time or another – the emergency nose-slide on their smartphone. Gloves are a seasonal necessity in colder climes, but snow nor sleet not dark of night will stop the phone lines from ringing, and your fickle life companion remains taciturn save for the touch of your warm, loving hands.
Some crafty Canadians have heard your sad lament, and bring you the touch-friendly Glider Gloves – designed to keep you warm and still let you interact with your phone (or tablet or car GPS).
Be aware that your friendly reviewer is very particular when it comes to gloves, so take the nitpicking for what its worth. We’ll make any showstoppers abundantly clear.
The Good:
- Excellent touch-screen response as per the tin
- Surprisingly dextrous
- Thin enough to reach into pockets
- Stretch to fit like a glove
The Bad
- Not suitable in real cold or high winds
- Palm-side grip is inconsistent
- Sketchy stitching in places
- Fabric gloves retain oils, stains
For starters, the winter-style Glider Gloves will set you back about $30, which is in line with any pair of reliable winter or deerhide gloves (I picked up the review pair at Staples – shout out to Justin for his help there). The gloves also come in Basic and Urban style, which one must assume are targeted to hipsters or sissies that need gloves in spring weather.
One thing that struck me immediately is how tight the gloves were – even the large size (I would normally wear a mens medium). The fit was uncomfortable at first, but over the course of a day or two, the gloves gradually stretched to a snug, comfortable, almost tailored fit. I have never found a pair of commercially-produced gloves that are a perfect fit, but the stretch-to-fit fabric brings these as close as can be expected.
The material is billed as 3-layers (for warmth), but the gloves are still very thin – thin enough to reach into a jeans pocket to retrieve your phone, but not thin enough to wear for typing or lots of writing. Tasks that required some dexterity – such as manipulating vehicle controls and buttons – were managed with aplomb. There were other pleasant surprises as well: receiving change, hitting security pad buttons and using house keys were all possible without removing my gloves.
The gloves’ thin, dextrous build comes with a trade-off: warmth. make no mistake that these are not gloves for outdoor winter activities. For driving and day-to-day in/out wear, they are warm enough, but if you try to wear them shoveling, you’re in for a rude (and cold) awakening. The porous fabric allows some wind to pass through, so the ol’ wind-chill scale will give you a good idea of how cold you will be wearing these gloves. Anything that registers a -10C on this chart is going to feel uncomfortable in Glider Gloves. By -20, it’s going to be outright painful.
Fabric winter gloves have two other drawbacks: they hold water (brrr) and they also hold onto oils, salts and stains. You will make perfect, round snowballs wearing these gloves, but they will be the equivalent of a wet cloth after about snowball number 3. Rub your eye or open your car door, and you’re slowly building up goo for a smudgefest on your favourite touch screen.
Touching screens, though, is one area where the Glider Gloves are without peer. Response is swift and accurate, and while the expanded touch surface area can cause the odd mis-click, it’s hard to imagine how the overall experience could be any better (we’re wearing gloves here folks).
The gloves feature a rubber-grip surface on the palm-side, which terminates just south of the third knuckle joint on each finger to allow for multi-finger touch. The rubber overlay though is not uniform, and leaves two large bare patches on the palm. In practice this sometimes leads to to an odd or unreliable gripping experience, and once to an untimely slipping incident on the steering wheel. While the designers seemed to be going for an anatomically efficient grip pattern, the pattern causes more trouble than a uniform gripping surface used on other gloves.
It’s actually hard to tell at a glance which is the front and which is the back of these gloves: the rubberized surface blends with the fabric. The posterior of the right-hand glove is marked with a little icon which your only visual guide when you’re in a hurry. The icon is a very subtle, even elegant touch, but something a little more clear would be welcome.
The build quality of the Glider Gloves seems good, though there was a loose thread on my pair at purchase (quickly remedied by the scissors on my Leatherman). The fabric around the wrist elastic started to fray after about a week, but no other serious flaws have surfaced yet. Again, this is a typical problem with fabric gloves.
Overall, this is a very good pair of gloves, and even when it gets pretty darn cold, I find myself reaching for them over a pair of heavier, traditional winter hand-warmers. There are a few annoyances here and there, but I really don’t mind, because the Glider Gloves have put my digital life back in the palm of my hand.
I’ve tried these types of gloves in the past but ended up going with gloves that leave the finger tips exposed. A low tech solution.