Reviewed by Tong Zhang
Editor's Ratings (1-5): 4.5
What's Hot: Great selection of stock art, very easy to design and order, good print quality.
What's Not: The adhesive loses strength with repeat use.
Using skins on mobile devices is becoming more and more popular. We've looked at SkinIt skins for iPhone 4 (check out our Tron Legacy Skin review) and MacBook Air 13" notebook. GelaSkins is another big brand in providing skins for notebooks, tablets, mobile phones, ebook readers, gaming systems and more. You can choose from their stock arts of 100 artists or create your own with photos or art. GelaSkins supports over 100 devices and systems, and offers custom made background images for your laptop, tablet or phone to match the skins' designs. We went through the ordering process, and found it easy and fast. We got the order confirmation within hours and the product delivery in 4 business days. The skin we ordered came safely in a cardboard poster tube.
Design
The material of GelaSkins is similar to the SkinIt material, thin laminated vinyl with 3M adhesive that?s repositionable and reusable. The GelaSkins for iPad 2 is thinner than any case, and it has a honeycomb like shallow texture that we like better than the SkinIt?s smooth skins. The GelaSkins comes on a protective board, you can easily peel it off of the board and lay it on your device. For the iPad 2 skin, it?d be a lot easier if you had two people to apply the skin. Position it right, then use a piece of soft cloth to push the skin onto the tablet from the center to the edges. Our skin didn?t leave any air bubble using this method. It?s not slippery and can certainly protect the iPad 2?s surface from being scratched. If you need to take off the skin or switch between different skins, you should know that these skins don?t leave any adhesive residue after you peel them off of a device, but the adhesive does lose strength over time, especially the parts where you handle the adhesive with your fingers. The skins themselves can keep their shapes pretty well. GelaSkins suggests that you put the skins back on the protective boards they came on which will help keep them in better condition.
Norman Rockwell:Brian Viveros:The most fun part of getting the GelaSkins is the design and it was also when we realized one skin just wasn?t enough. GelaSkins offers a large number of stock designs from artists such as Norman Rockwell, Giselle Silverstri, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and many more. Colin Thompson designed the skin used in this review and it?s called Music, and it comes with an image for the iPad 2 that matches the skin around the display bezel in portrait orientation. GelaSkins certainly has a different take on selection of art pieces compared to SkinIt, and provides one collection we wish SkinIt had: Marvel art pieces.
GelaSkins also lets you design your own device skins with photos or art pieces. You can upload image files in PNG, JPG or GIF format and GelaSkins provides help on their web site for positioning the pictures onto your skins. They also offer an instruction video to help you with the process and give you tips for best results. If you have really interesting art pieces you can even submit them to GelaSkins to be considered for their collections.
Features
The skin for iPad 2 from GelaSkins has a custom fit for the tablet and perfect cutouts for the ports and buttons. The iPad 2 skin leaves out four corners for some reason, but covers the rest of the tablet on the back including the Apple logo. It covers the front bezel around the display. The skin has cutout for the 30-pin connector and the speaker grill on the bottom of the iPad 2. The power button, mic and audio out jack on top are also easily accessible via cutouts, and the rear camera is exposed as well. The front skin piece has cutouts for the Home button below the display, the front camera and sensor above the screen. This is why it?s easier to have two people putting on the skin: you need to line the cutouts with the ports and buttons without wrinkling the skins while doing it.
Conclusion
GelaSkins makes it painless for you to create skins for your laptop, tablet, phone or gaming system. The skins have bright, sharp and colorful prints, and they?re reusable and don?t leave adhesive residue behind thanks to 3M technology. The process is easy and fast, the collection of stock arts is quite different from other skins makers we?ve seen. And having the matching background screens for your skins just tops it off. If you are a fan of Marvel or Nat Geo you will finally have some art pieces to grace your gear. GelaSkin ships their products worldwide. As they are a Canadian company, they ship their products from Canada and they have 30-day return policy for unopened skins with stock art.
Price: $29.95
Web site: GelaSkins
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(click to play the video) 
Auralux is very simple. Each mission has stars that produce little sparks of the same color. The player controls the blue stars, while the opposing orange and green stars are computer-controlled. The rate of production depends on the size of the star, of which there are three. The smallest produces one spark per tick, the medium makes two, and the large generates three. The goal of the game is to take over all of the enemy stars, while preventing the loss of your own. Should you happen to lose a star or two, though, don’t worry—you can always rebuild them, or even repair them while they’re being damaged. Unlike the spores in Eufloria (another indie game that’s also an influence on Auralux), the sparks can be directly controlled by the player.Each star can be destroyed by having sparks of a different color crash into it. The number of sparks it takes depends on the size of the star. Once a location is vacated, or once you find an empty location, you can build your own star by sending sparks into the star-spot. It takes the same number to build a star as it takes to destroy it, so there’s a 1:1 spark ratio. The same proportion also holds true in spark vs. spark combat. If sparks of different colors touch each other, then they mutually annihilate. That’s it so far as the rules and mechanics go. The fun part is devising a strategy that allows you to take over the symmetrically designed levels, while preventing the computer (or computers) from doing the same. All of the age-old principles apply; you benefit by playing your enemies against each other and by employing the doctrine of concentration of force.
Visually, Auralux is very simple and yet very pretty. I enjoyed looking at the screen as I was playing, and I also enjoyed the ambient sound effects. There are no orchestral scores or realistic 3D audio, but that’s a part of the appeal. Even though the game is not easy, with many of the levels being incredibly difficult to beat, there is no sense of urgency. A StarCraft spaz has no advantage against a slower, contemplative player, although tarrying too long creates problems down the line. Still, there is always time to think and react. If an enemy is attacking, the attack is not instant, so you can muster a defense. If you see that your own attack is destined to fail, you can always call it off.I enjoyed my time with Auralux. Aside from being a fun and relaxing game, it’s also a testament to the fact that one doesn’t have to be a gigantic conglomerate with hundreds of employees, corporate headquarters, and a dozen rabid lawyers on retainer to produce a quality product. Matters are also well-handled outside the game. There is a free demo, so you can try before you buy. There is no DRM, so you don’t have to worry about being punished for purchasing. The price is just $5, so anyone can easily afford it. Most of all, there is an actual person behind this game, someone who cares enough about his art and his customers to go out of his way to help them with whatever issues they might have. This is the type of developer whom we gamers should support, because unlike some, he brings genuine value to the table.
