In January 2015, I went to Covent Garden in search of a practical answer to a familiar winter problem: how do you use a touchscreen without repeatedly removing your gloves?
My existing pair was warm enough for walking around London, but answering a phone, operating a camera or choosing music meant exposing my hands to the cold. A friend recommended The North Face, so I visited its Covent Garden shop to look at the Etip range.
This film records the pair available at that time and the tests I carried out after buying them. The Etip name has continued, but materials, construction and specifications may have changed since this 2015 version.
Buying the gloves in Covent Garden
The requirement was quite specific. I wanted a lightweight urban glove rather than a heavily insulated ski glove, but it still needed to be useful during a British winter. Most importantly, it needed to operate the touchscreens on my iPhone, iPod and camera.
The Covent Garden shop carried several heavier options. I chose the lighter North Face Etip glove because it seemed better suited to walking around London, filming and using a phone throughout the day.
The 2015 Etip design
The packaging described the gloves as touchscreen compatible and referred to conductive technology embedded through the fingers. Unlike gloves that limit touchscreen control to one fingertip, this pair offered five-finger operation.
The index finger carried a small power-symbol detail. A silicone grip pattern ran across the palm, thumb and index finger, corresponding with the areas used to hold a phone or other device.
Testing the touchscreen control
The first indoor test was deliberately simple. I swiped between screens, opened applications and then attempted the more demanding task of typing “Roberts London” into Google.
The gloves exceeded my expectations. Swiping worked cleanly and I was able to type without removing them. I repeated the exercise on YouTube, where the glove again allowed accurate enough control to search and navigate.
The useful question was whether the gloves could keep a phone functional while keeping my hands covered. Being able to search and type exceeded what I had hoped for when I bought them.
A cold-weather bicycle test
Touchscreen control was only half of the test. I also wore the gloves on a mountain-bike ride through local woodland. The temperature was around freezing when I set out, with additional wind chill created by riding.
Those conditions were probably beyond the intended use of this lightweight model. Even so, the gloves kept my hands comfortable. I would not have chosen them for skiing or prolonged exposure to severe cold, and my main expectation was that they would be practical for walking around town with a phone and camera.
The verdict from 2015
The most impressive part of the Etip glove was not simply that it could answer a call. It allowed proper interaction with a touchscreen: swiping, selecting applications, searching and typing. Combined with its light weight and grip pattern, that made it particularly well suited to an urban routine involving phones and cameras.
This remains a record of one pair bought and tested in 2015, rather than an assessment of every later Etip version. For that original use — moving between Covent Garden, London streets and a cold bicycle ride — the gloves proved comfortable, practical and far more capable than expected.
