First off, let me say, I by no means have the hands of a surgeon. This process immediately took me back to my GI JOE days when I had to put stickers on the vehicles. The nice thing about the DG skins are that they're much more forgiving than the 'no step' or 'danger' stickers hasbro sent out back in the day. (Note: to reduce glare I turned off the flash on my camera. The result are some slightly blurry pics...)
First pic: My DS Lite in all of it's Polar glory. I do very much like the white color, but on an impulse purchase (and in a fit of nostalgia) purchased the Retro skin from DG:http://www.decalgirl.com/browse.cfm/4,4194.htm
Second: The skin sheet. The directions are a little brief and the link that it recommends checking for additional assistance is a dead page. Tarrying not, i dove in head first.
Taking on the easiest part first, I applied the outside cover skin. Before and after Pics (you can't tell from the crappy pic, but the DS logo shows through the skin...cool!). It was simple to get it straight and this vinyl sheet was easy to work with. The sticky side is forgiving and I only had to adjust it once before smoothing it out.
[URL="http://img310.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img30534ro.jpg"]
Now things get hairy. The decals for the inside of the DS are pretty precisely cut and there's little room for error. I attempted the top one first and had to peel and restick 3 or 4 times before it fit right. The biggest pain was having to punch out all of the holes for the speaker vents. They were pre-punched, but getting them off the skin required poking them with a pencil and tearing them off. The result was pretty good though:
Applying the bottom skin is where things got more troublesome. Above the touch screen is a narrow strip of white and on the skin is a corresponding narrow strip of the skin. Well, in my attempts to ensure the skin was taught and bubble free, I apparently stretched out the vinyl for that strip and it would no longer fit properly. As a result I had to snip it with a sharp knife and overlay it over itself above the upper left corner. Also- and I believe unrelated, the skin would not lay properly over the lower left corner of the touchscreen either. Snip there as well. Unless you scrutinize, you can't really tell.
The finished product! I tried to get a detail shot of the lettering around the buttons but everything was blurred...
It's quite slick looking in person-especially the outside skin which is easily my favorite. The internal skins I like but don't love and when I tire of them they'll be coming off. The outside one's going to stay though.
Overall, the skin is very high quality and it's mostly my unsteady hands that resulted in any problems I had. I would give the skin itself a 9 out 10. The process to install it was a 7 out of 10 and my overall experience was a solid 8.5 out of ten earning a recommend from this gamer.[/URL]
First pic: My DS Lite in all of it's Polar glory. I do very much like the white color, but on an impulse purchase (and in a fit of nostalgia) purchased the Retro skin from DG:http://www.decalgirl.com/browse.cfm/4,4194.htm
Second: The skin sheet. The directions are a little brief and the link that it recommends checking for additional assistance is a dead page. Tarrying not, i dove in head first.
Taking on the easiest part first, I applied the outside cover skin. Before and after Pics (you can't tell from the crappy pic, but the DS logo shows through the skin...cool!). It was simple to get it straight and this vinyl sheet was easy to work with. The sticky side is forgiving and I only had to adjust it once before smoothing it out.
[URL="http://img310.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img30534ro.jpg"]Now things get hairy. The decals for the inside of the DS are pretty precisely cut and there's little room for error. I attempted the top one first and had to peel and restick 3 or 4 times before it fit right. The biggest pain was having to punch out all of the holes for the speaker vents. They were pre-punched, but getting them off the skin required poking them with a pencil and tearing them off. The result was pretty good though:
Applying the bottom skin is where things got more troublesome. Above the touch screen is a narrow strip of white and on the skin is a corresponding narrow strip of the skin. Well, in my attempts to ensure the skin was taught and bubble free, I apparently stretched out the vinyl for that strip and it would no longer fit properly. As a result I had to snip it with a sharp knife and overlay it over itself above the upper left corner. Also- and I believe unrelated, the skin would not lay properly over the lower left corner of the touchscreen either. Snip there as well. Unless you scrutinize, you can't really tell.
The finished product! I tried to get a detail shot of the lettering around the buttons but everything was blurred...
It's quite slick looking in person-especially the outside skin which is easily my favorite. The internal skins I like but don't love and when I tire of them they'll be coming off. The outside one's going to stay though.
Overall, the skin is very high quality and it's mostly my unsteady hands that resulted in any problems I had. I would give the skin itself a 9 out 10. The process to install it was a 7 out of 10 and my overall experience was a solid 8.5 out of ten earning a recommend from this gamer.[/URL]
