INTRODUCTION
Personalization of mobile devices is a big business.
Consumers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a
year on things like cases, ringtones, ringback
tones, screensavers and device skins. It seems that
everyone wants to play in the personalization game.
Skinit.com provides thousands of unique skins for
hundreds of mobile devices. Recently, I received a
Skinit.com skin for my Treo 700w. Considering that I
usually keep my Treo in my pocket "naked," I was
very interested to see whether or not this skin
provided a little protection and personalization to
my Treo. How did it fare? Read on to find out!
WHAT'S
HOT
Skinit.com boasts some pretty impressive features for their
skins:
- Perfect fit skins developed to fit the unique contours of each device
- 3M Scotchprint Graphics materials to provide durability, exceptional image quality and easy removal
- High-quality print using digital printing technology
- Fights everyday scratches, scuffs and scrapes
- Thousands of popular licensed properties including sports teams, colleges, television and film
- Upload your own photo and turn it into a skin
SETUP
First up, you need to order your skin
from the Skinit.com website.
(all images link to high-resolution versions)
The Skinit.com home page is clean, fresh-looking and easy to use. I began my order by clicking the "Devices" link at the top of the page.
From here you can choose the category of device you would like to order a skin for. Skinit.com offers skins for everything from mobile phones to entire laptops... even some Bluetooth headsets can be skinned.
After navigating to Phones > PalmOne the list of Treos which can currently be skinned is shown. So far, the Treo 700 is the latest model to be supported.
Next, it is time to choose the skin's design. Here you can see some of the many categories available.
I decided to go with the "Entertainment" category. There a lot of licenses characters including Disney, Looney Tunes and The Simpsons to name just a few.
As a huge "Family Guy" fan, when I saw that there were "Family Guy" skins available, there was no doubt what kind of skin I would order. Notice that the website remembers which device you chose earlier.
I decided that Stewie would make a good skin for my Treo. When you select the skin, the site shows you the price and a graphic of what the skin will look like before you install it on the device.
The shopping cart is pretty self-explanatory. NOTE: in the "APPLY DISCOUNT CODE" field, type in "pocketnow" for a special 20% discount we arranged for our readers!
After you decide on a form of payment, you get to wait a few days until the skin is mailed to you. Shipping is included in the price of the skin, which is very nice. I always hate finding something online and then getting to the checkout page only to find that the shipping costs are unreasonable.
I was able to speak with Skinit.com representatives while at the CTIA show in March. Interestingly, the first time a specific design is ordered for a specific device, Skinit.com has a graphic artist who performs a layout unique to that combination. They then have that combination stored and available for future orders that others may place.
PRODUCT FEATURES
My skin arrived via USPS in about 7
business days. The skin comes packaged in a
cardboard envelope to protect it from damage and
bending.
The skin arrives on a backing. Each seam and section of the device is pre-cut including the buttons and doors.
Now it is time to apply the skin. To be honest, I really hate applying screen protectors to my devices... I find most of them to be a pain to apply. I was expecting a similar experience with the skin. To my surprise, the skin was pretty darn easy to apply. It peels off of the backing easily, it is thick enough not to tear and it can be peeled off and re-applied with little effort. The only minor annoyance was poking out the holes for each button on the keyboard, but that is certainly not the fault of Skinit.com. Application took me a total of 3-5 minutes.
Here is the skin (1 piece) applied to the front of the Treo. The cut-outs are well-aligned for all the buttons and the screen.
Here is the skin (6 pieces) applied to the back of the Treo. The same design is on the front and back, but the placement of the graphic is different.
Overall, I was very impressed with the quality of the skin for the price. It feels well made and the quality of the graphics is truly excellent. Over a couple of weeks of use, the skin proved pretty resilient to everyday wear and tear. A small area on the back near the stylus port began to peel off a bit, but it is not something you would really notice unless you were looking for it.
I would have preferred that the skin also come with pieces for the sides, top and bottom of the device. Only the front and the back are covered. A lot of the scratches on my device are around the bottom and top corners and these areas are not covered with the skin. I can see that some people would not want the sides covered because it may make the device slippery, but I would still prefer as much to be covered as possible.
That being said, for those like me who keep the device "naked" in their pocket, these skins provide the thinnest protection I have seen to date. Even a silicone skin adds quite a bit of bulk to the device and those types of skins also collect lint like a magnet. The Skinit.com skins are very thin, yet durable. They also do not attract lint. These skins do not reduce the need for a good screen protector, though.
Taking the skin off is even easier than attaching it. Simply peel it off from any corner and it comes right off. No muss, no fuss. Skinit.com estimates the life of a skin to be 6 months or so depending on use. To me, that is a fair deal... besides, after a few months you will probably want to try a different skin!
