Although I love looking at all the beautiful DecalGirl skins posted here on KindleBoards, none of DecalGirl's selection really felt very "me" to me. Enter
www.mytego.com, a website for custom skinning all sorts of electronics, including both the first-generation Kindle and, recently added, the Kindle 2. Designing skins on their site, whether from a selection of Tego's images or one of your own, is easy, fun, and even a tad addicting; before deciding on my first skin, I assembled
quite a collection of contenders, and I was crossing my fingers that my skin turned out looking as cool in person as it did in the website's preview -- if so, I'd be giving Tego plenty of business in the future!
After receiving my first Tego skin, I have to say that the biggest negative for me is the turnaround time. Here's a timeline of my order:
Saturday, April 11: ordered custom skin.
Tuesday, April 21: received email informing me that my order was now being made.
Friday, April 24: received shipping notification.
Friday, May 1: custom skin was delivered.
Total time from order to delivery: 21 days.Now, granted, Tego is based in Canada, I live in Florida, and I chose "Standard Lettermail" shipping, but I wish there was some way to speed up the process a little bit. It looks like my Tego design languished in limbo for about ten days before being manufactured. Maybe I'm just spoiled by companies like Oberon Design when it comes to turnaround time, though. =)
That being said, was my custom Tego skin worth the wait? You bet!
Having never skinned any of my electronics, I wanted to go with something sort of understated and neutral to start off; I didn't want bright colors or splashy images distracting me from reading my Kindle. I chose an old photo of seashells taken by my husband at Cocoa Beach, then applied a subtle white "ripple" effect to tone down the colors a bit and give an impression of water over top of the shells. I thought this would complement my navy Hokusai Wave cover from Oberon nicely: open up the cover with the wave on front, and find shells inside. It made sense to me, anyway.
Since I only remove my Kindle from its cover when I insert or eject the SD card, I didn't bother with designing a piece for the back; I just ordered the front. Unlike DecalGirl, which requires you to order both a front and a back skin, Tego allows you to order only the "faces" you want to cover on your Kindle. I like that.
One thing I do prefer about DecalGirl's custom skin process (which I began before finding out that I'd have to pay for both a front and a back whether I wanted both of them or not) is the ability to eliminate the "NEXT PAGE," "PREV PAGE," and "BACK" labels on the Kindle's buttons. I'd love to see Tego include that option in the future!
The skin, when it arrived, seemed pretty true to the colors in the photograph, although I'm not sure if the same could be said for a more vivid image. For my picture, though, it worked well, and the print quality seems decent. I was pleased with how that turned out.
I was a little disappointed with the texture of the skin, however; it maintains the tiny diamond shapes from the backing paper to which it was affixed, and you can see minute "dimples" when the light hits it just right as well as feel them the slightest bit. It's not a deal-breaker for me (and I don't know if this is normal -- for instance, whether DecalGirl's skins are totally smooth or if they have a faintly visible/tactile texture like Tego's), but it's something that I felt ought to be addressed. I don't think it's going to bother me, fortunately.
Tego included instructions for applying my new skin, as well as a nice little touch: an alcohol prep to wipe off my Kindle before putting the skin on. Convenient!
Applying the skin was kind of a pain, though. Remember, this is my first skin, so I don't know what's considered typical, but I spent just shy of twenty minutes putting my Tego skin on my Kindle. Several of those minutes were spent simply removing the main piece from the backing paper. Despite peeling it off slowly, probably half of the "cut-outs," the little stickers that should've come off to reveal the holes in the skin for the keyboard and buttons, didn't detach from the main skin on their own. This meant that I had to punch out each one individually. Yuck! Once that was done, though, I didn't mind the rest of the application process; there were six pieces in total, and, in spite of their thinness, I felt that they were all pretty easily removable and adjustable when I needed to straighten them out. The skin isn't perfectly aligned, but it's close enough for me, and I think it looks downright spiffy.
What do
you think? These are some photos of my Kindle in its debut skin, along with its coordinating custom screensaver and navy blue Hokusai Wave cover from Oberon:
The colors aren't exact, but you get the idea.
Overall, I'm satisfied with my Tego skin. I wish it would've gotten to me faster, and it would've been nice if all of the keyboard/button cut-outs would've separated on their own, but those small annoyances are outweighed by my happiness with the ease of designing and ordering a custom skin as well as with the final product itself. Tego included a code for twenty percent off my next order, and, after this, there's no question that there will be a next order -- I just have to decide which of my designs to go with for my second skin!
Grade: B+
