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Interest in black bezel skin for macbook air 11" and 13"? Pics inside

peapody

peapody

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
3,176
142
San Francisco, CA
I hope I am not breaking forum rules, but I thought I would post this here as well since not a lot of air owners cross over to the mbp forums.

Hey guys,

I have been talking about this for a while here on the forums about the development of a black matte vinyl skin for owners of Macbook Air 13", Macbook Air 11.6" and HR AG 15" MBP ...to go around their bezels for the original macbook unibody look. I just wanted to show you that this solution is out there. (Disclaimer, I am not affiliated with the seller, other than the initial design to fit a need for this customer base..no profit made by me here.)

Here are pictures


After:



I just wanted to gauge the interest on this item..to see if it would be worth it to have these mass produced. Who would be interested? And at what price? This goes for macbook air owners as well.


A full review with more pictures (and place to purchase) will be offered on gadgetmac.com shortly.
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Of it looked clear I might be. Where it says MacBook Pro I think it should look nicer. Matter of fact, I'd rather it say nothing than look like that. Also, the camera hole needs to be exactly lined up with the camera so you don't see the silver there either.
 
Cheap looking... and no thanks.

Problem with skins for the MBA bezel is that the bezel itself is about 1mm thick/thin and the skin will only cover the "top" part of it... so silver-ish "thickness/thinness" is still visible when you're looking at from any other angle than dead center... the other problem is that both the cutout for the isight and especially the name of the computer look amateurish and effectively the overall effect looks cheap.

In my opinion I'd rather cover up the name of the computer all together and skip making a cutout for that... and be more precise when it comes to the isight cutout. As far as the led indicator, well... cover that up too, but then again you may not see if your isight is on or not... I don't think there ever will be a perfect solution for that unless you disassemble it and "paint" it...

One thing is to have a skin for your palm rest area and top cover... another is to try to imitate the glass look from a MBP 13" and make it look cheapo. Anyway that's my opinion though... A for effort though...

Edit: Your second "middle" picture shows that the bleeding silver is also a problem on the MBP... the silver lines between the screen and the "skin" would just annoy me horribly, and I'm not about to "sharpie" around the edges. Sorry.
 
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Nice, though I wouldn't spend much on it. I second that the Macbook name should be covered, too.
 
The bottom where it says Macbook Pro is not nice, looks a bit amateur. Why not leave it a complete black strip with a printed Macbook Pro on it instead? Cut outs never too good on anything, and this does spoil the overall look. Why bother anyway? For uniformity in case you own several laptops? I dont get it..
That's what I think....:(
 
Thanks for all the input so far. I told my designer about not needing to cut out the bottom, and he will be just leaving it either all black or cutting out the words "Macbook Pro" so that the silver shows through.

Any other input guys?
 
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I think it would be great for a duel purpose, I'd get one not just for aesthetic but would also help keep the keyboard imprint off the screen.
 
i agree that the hole for the camera should be more exact.

And I'd prefer a shiner finish than the matte to make it look more like the unibodys...as it is right now, it looks like a cheap sticker (no offence).

It looks like black hockey stick tape...
 
miggitymac said:
i agree that the hole for the camera should be more exact.

And I'd prefer a shiner finish than the matte to make it look more like the unibodys...as it is right now, it looks like a cheap sticker (no offence).

It looks like black hockey stick tape...
Click to expand...

I don't know how you can tell that from my low res picture :rolleyes:

The hole for the camera was difficult to do. I am not sure how we would get around that.
 
peapody said:
Thanks for all the input so far. I told my designer about not needing to cut out the bottom, and he will be just leaving it either all black or cutting out the words "Macbook Pro" so that the silver shows through.

Any other input guys?
Click to expand...

Ugly, cheap looking, tacky, not needed. The silver bezel looks perfect with overall design. There is no big slab of glass on the display making a black frame needed.
 
PeterKG said:
Ugly, cheap looking, tacky, not needed. The silver bezel looks perfect with overall design. There is no big slab of glass on the display making a black frame needed.
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what?

i think it looks good. gives "Pro" look to Air. if i had MBA i'd but this in a heartbeat. (<$20)
 
I'll buy one if the bottom hole is covered and the price is around 15 bucks. Also try to find a more elegant solution for the microphone hole. I'm not a huge fan of the solution now.
 
peapody said:
Hard to do unfortunately. If you have ideas...
Click to expand...

Micro perforation? Might be hard to perfect'y align though, easy to end up just covering all the hole haha.

edit:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11905590

IMO, for the MBA you can just cover the tiny holes next to the camera. It's just the LED. Small price to pay.

The current solution would not stop me from buying one though. Just cover up the bottom thingy and good to go.
 
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I would be interested in a 13" air version
 
the bottom opening looks silly, it should have 'Macbook Air' printed on it in white,

for the camera, i would cover up the LED, and then if the person buying it wants, they could just use a pin to make a really small unnoticeable hole, which the light would shine through when on.

but it definitely needs to be glossy, or at least glossier than it is now.

the one thing that puts me off the Air is the lack of a black bezel, i know it sounds picky but for £800 it's gotta be perfect in my eyes, and with a silver surround, its not,

so if this was made better, i would maybe consider an Air, plus this bezel.
 
peapody said:
I hope I am not breaking forum rules, but I thought I would post this here as well since not a lot of air owners cross over to the mbp forums.
Click to expand...
I think you're fine based on forum rules. You aren't trying to sell anything, you are just trying to gauge interest so you can decide whether or not you should mass produce something.


Honestly, I think it looks terrible. But I would like to help you make it better. Get rid of the cutout where it says MacBook Pro. Get rid of the cutout for the iSight LED (it's not that important), leaving a clean, aesthetically pleasing circle around the iSight. If you end up mass producing it, offer glossy as well as matte versions.
 
I've got a 15" mid 2009 MacBook Pro with an anti-glare screen. I've actually been looking for something like this for a while now. I'd love it if you produced it. I might be willing to pay up to $20 depending on how good it looks (that you've fixed the cut out for the MacBook Pro text is a great improvement). So I hope you make it!
 
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