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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Check out our iPad 2 case reviews:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/iPad-Case-Reviews.htm
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