GelaSkins: Custom Skins Review

Earlier this year I blogged about GelaSkins, the product that protects your fancy electronic doodads with stylish skins in different designs. I bought one skin each for my iPod Touch and BlackBerry Bold 9000, but lamented the stunning lack of photography available on the site compared to the dearth of illustrations and paintings.

Specifically, I wondered aloud what my photo of Peggy’s Cove would look like on the back of a laptop. Well, wonder no more:

This is thanks to a new feature on the GelaSkins site which enables the user to upload their own images to have custom skins made.

I had four devices that I needed skins for: iPod Touch (2nd gen), Nintendo DS Lite, a newish 13″ MacBook Pro, and a brand new BlackBerry Bold 9700. Before I set out on my custom adventure, I perused the ready-made section of the site to see if there was anything that tickled my fancy. Designs for the iPod and DS were plentiful, but I was saddened to see there were absolutely no skins available for the MacBook Pro nor the Bold 9700. In the case of the Bold 9700, it didn’t surprise me that much since I bought one on the day of release and it takes time to get accessories to market. However, in the case of the MacBook Pro, a product I’ve owned for nearly six months, there didn’t seem to be any good reason why skins weren’t available for it.

I was ready to give up at this point and just check back in a few months to see if the selection had changed, but I pressed on anyway. Lo and behold, when I clicked on “Create Your Own”, the Bold 9700 and 13″ MacBook Pro were both viable options. Weird! About five days after I ordered, the Bold 9700 finally made it into the ready-made section, but the 13″ MBP is still nowhere to be seen as of this writing.

After selecting the device I wanted, I was greeted with the upload interface and began sending photos to the site to toy with. I didn’t get very far, though, as the uploader rejected my .jpg file with the following error: “Sorry, we cannot accept that type of file (.jpg). Please review the accepted files type: (acceptable format: jpg,png, gif).”

Um, okay. So to recap — I upload a .jpg file and am told that .jpg files are not an acceptable file type, one of which is .jpg. Confused? Me too. I tried re-uploading the same file over and over, to no avail. I tried opening and resaving in Photoshop with different settings. I tried direct exports from Lightroom. I tried everything I could think of. Eventually, and for no other reason than just repeatedly clicking the Upload button, my file was accepted. When I chose another photo to upload, the results were hit and miss. Sometimes it would upload on the first try, and other times it would take close to ten attempts to get the GelaSkins system to accept it without any modifications on my end. This was a tedious process and any normal human likely would have given up long before I did.

Other than the requirement of a .jpg file, there are no other specs listed on the upload page for what type of files are recommended for the GelaSkins system. Buried in the FAQ (and how many people will check that?) are rough guidelines for resolution, but not much else. No aspect ratio, no colour space, no bit-depth, nothing. As a test, I uploaded a ridiculously low-res file to see if the system would generate any warnings about quality of the finished product. Alas, it did not. I can imagine hoards of people using photos downloaded from their Facebook profile (about 600×400) to create skins and being vastly disappointed when they come out looking like a giant pixelated mess.

So after struggling with the uploader for the better part of an hour, I finally progressed to the layout. The layout controls were thankfully simple and clean, allowing easy customization and cropping of the images on the front/back of the devices. One cool thing is the ability to create custom wallpaper for your device’s LCD screen, as well as customize the text that appears on the packaging. More on this in a bit. All in all, the layout tool was flawless compared to the uploader. No errors, no quirks, it just worked.

After the layout is complete, the site displays a photo-realistic preview of what the finished product will look like on the device. At this point, the product can be saved in the shopping cart and then the process can be restarted for additional devices.

I created three custom skins from my own photos (for the Bold, MBP, and iPod), and picked one of the existing GelaSkins designs for my Nintendo DS.

My previous order with GelaSkins arrived ridiculously fast, and they state in the confirmation email that, “We do our best to process all orders within one business day.” That wasn’t the case this time, possibly because of the holiday season, or possibly because of the DIY nature of the skins. The timeframe was still super fast — three days to process the order and two more for it to arrive. Just be aware of this if you’re planning on ordering any Christmas gifts. The sooner the better!

The confirmation email also contained .jpg files of the wallpaper for my iPod and Bold 9700. The one for the iPod looked great, faithful to the original .jpg I uploaded, but the Bold 9700 wallpaper did not:

Kinda blurry, eh? In fact, ridiculously blurry. Obviously the back-end of the GelaSkins website that creates this image either malfunctioned or just plain doesn’t work. This is how it should look, after I did it myself in Photoshop:

The package arrives:

The items are packaged in a sturdy cardboard mailer. The item on the left is a fun little cardboard coaster they threw in. The quality of the skins is fantastic, and closely matches my original photos. I immediately noticed two things, though. Firstly, the image of Randall holding the colourful mask came out much darker than I expected. It still looks terrific, mind you, but her dark hair blends in with the dark background a bit too much. Secondly, the Bold 9700 skin came with the wrong Gelascreen in the sleeve. Gelascreens are clear LCD protectors and the one I was sent is for the old Bold 9000, not the Bold 9700, so it doesn’t fit.

I quickly got to work, sticking my new skins to the devices. The 3M adhesive is top-notch miracle stuff. I don’t know how it works, but it works very very well. Adhering and repositioning the skins is a piece of cake.

The finished product:

With the new BlackBerry Bold 9700, RIM has switched from their traditional trackball to a trackpad, similar to those on laptops. The skins have a cutout that exposes the ball or pad, depending on the model. One quirk I’ve found with the trackpad/skin combo is that it’s mildly annoying to scroll up or down, because my finger keeps skimming against the sharp edge of the skin. I imagine that this will dull over time. The trackball didn’t have this issue, since it protruded from the Blackberry body, whereas the trackpad is flush. Thus the added thickness of the skin causes a slight difference in height.

Finally, I got a great deal on the skins because of the “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” offer, in combination with a Black Friday sale. The B3G1 offer continues, but now there’s a free shipping promotion on! Head on over to GelaSkins to make your own!

Pros: top notch quality, fast turnaround time, excellent value for money, accurate printing/cropping

Cons: mostly back-end engine/interface stuff on the site like the broken uploader, ambiguous image specs, missing devices, blurry wallpaper, and the mis-shipped Gelascreen