Wrappz is a company that offers personalised ‘skins’ for your gadgets. They gave us a complimentary code so that we could create our own personalised skin and review the service for Playpennies.
You start by choosing the gadget you want to wrap in a personalised skin. I opted for my laptop but you can choose from phones, ipads, ipods, laptops, kindles and games consoles.
To start with you select the item you want to cover with a skin, which is a pretty straightforward process. I opted for a skin for my Macbook laptop.
Next you have to select the right size of your gadget, and in some cases you can choose whether to have the device’s logo showing or not.
Somehow I managed to select the wrong size at this stage but that’s down to my own idiocy, nothing to do with the site or its usability. But if you do use the service make sure you get the item’s measurements absolutely right as the quality of the finished skin is really dependent on that.
Once you’ve done that you simply choose your design.You can choose from text or images, and within the image options you can choose from an image of your own which you simply upload to the site, or various different image options offered by the site.
I’ll be honest - I struggled to find an image that I really wanted to adorn my beloved laptop with, even though there’s a pretty wide variety of image options to choose from. I guess I’m the wrong demographic for the site though - I was choosing a skin expressly for the purposes of this review rather than because I had an image in mind that I wanted to turn into a skin, whereas I imagine most of the site’s users would already have an image that they want to use.
Selecting the image is pretty straightforward, and once you’re finished you can preview what your item will look like with the finished product attached, although it’s a very simplistic preview.
When you’re ready to order your skin you can pay by Paypal or by card. Shipping costs £2.95 and the service wasn’t particularly speedy so if you’re thinking of buying someone a personalised skin for Christmas I’d get your order in sooner rather than later.
When my skin arrived I was pleasantly surprised - I hadn’t expected to particularly love it since the design I plumped for wasn’t something I was overly passionate about but once I applied it to my laptop the design really grew on me. It also attracted lots of comments from other people. I chose a design that looks like someone threw paint all over my laptop, so it’s definitely a conversation starter although it would have been even better if I'd chosen the right size, and if my laptop was white rather than silver.
It’s very easy to apply and fairly easy to remove, although I did 'scratch' my skin trying to peel it off. I reckon mine will be staying put though. I'm kind of attached to it now.
I think a personalised skin or cover for a phone would make a pretty cool present for someone, and using a picture of your kids for Granny would be a lovely idea that I reckon would be well received. Somehow personalised covers for phones make more sense to me, since my phone is an item for my personal / social use whereas my laptop is mainly used for work, so covering it with a pic of my kids just doesn’t seem appropriate. (My phone already has a cover though, which is why I didn't review a skin for a phone. And that's definitely something to consider if you're thinking about buying a personalised skin as a gift - it's worth making sure that your intended recipient doesn't already have a cover or case.)
Pros: An original idea for a prezzie, especially for someone who's very into their gadget but who might appreciate seeing a snap of their grandchild or their favourite piece of artwork every time they look at it.
Cons: Unless you have an image that you want to use, I found the available images didn't really do it for me. In particular the nature images were a bit disappointing but having said that, I think using your own image is the way to make the most of this service.
Overall verdict: A good, reliable service if you're looking for a company that does personalised skins for electronic gadgets.
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