Review Roccat Restyle Protection Skin
The Roccat Restyle Skins allegedly beef up notebooks' looks and additionally protect against scratches. They are suitable for notebooks sized 13 – 17.3 inches, whereas you can naturally apply them to smaller notebooks (however you may have to disrupt a part of the design). The single protective skins are delivered in a nicely designed box. The instructions for mounting are printed on the back.
Currently, there are two designs available:
Mounting
Applying the skin is relatively easy. However you should execute the steps very carefully to get a clean result.
- Measure the lid's even surface accurately (that is without any bevels because the skin won't adhere here)
- Cut the skin to the determined size. A practical grid is printed on the back. You have to take care to cut in straight lines and should thus use a big scissor or a trimming knife.
- Clean and degrease the display lid. Removing any dust is particularly important because it affects the adhesive properties considerably.
- Make sure there are no bubbles. This isn't difficult due to the thick material, though.
Practical Test
We received skins in both designs for the test and applied them on an Apple MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz from 2007 (15.4") and a Fujitsu-Siemens Esprimo U9200 (12"). Cutting the skin with our small scissor proved to be difficult because it only created irregular cuts. Also, we cut the skin to fit the entire lid surface in the beginning. However, that didn't work because of the bevels toward the edges (the Restyle only adheres to even surfaces). The Mighty Blue version could be fitted on the display without disrupting the graphical design despite the too small lid size of 12".
Durability
Roccat states that the protective foil is "extremely durable" on its homepage. This is already a contradiction due to the reusability. The foil could be removed without great effort in the test, but it certainly can't be called "extremely durable". A repeated application should be possible with restrictions (the adhesive won't last very long when this is frequently done). A drawback of the fairly low adhesiveness and the skin's thickness is that you have to make sure that the skin isn't torn off and bent while stowing away the notebook. This happened to us as we had to quickly pack up the MBP 15. It's practically useless afterwards because the crease can hardly be removed.
Scratching Resistance
The scratching resistance is on the pro side of the skin. We could only damage the high-gloss layer with pointed and sharp objects. Normal high-gloss lids already scratch during slightest interactions. The Roccat Restyle can score significantly here because it protects the lid. The surface stays robust and still protects the lid even after the clear-coat layer had been damaged.
UV Resistance
We only tested the UV resistance in a short stay of several hours under intense summer sunlight. We couldn't find any color changes after this short period and the skin also didn't detach from the lid.
Verdict
The Roccat Restyle Notebook Skins can successfully make a dull lid more attractive. The hard line design will likely mainly appeal to gamers and give them an individualization option. The skins manufacturing and material quality are impressive in any event, the design is a matter of taste. Fingerprints will almost always be present on the high-gloss foil.
Applying the Restyle skin is accomplished with few steps. Nevertheless, cutting to fit requires a certain amount of accuracy. Because the skin only adheres to even surfaces, there is always a visible edge.
The adhesive properties have been made for removing the skin without (hopefully) damaging the notebook's surface (none of the lids took damage in the test). Due to the moderate adhesiveness and the skin's great thickness you have to take care that the Restyle doesn't come off and crease while stowing away the notebook.
The scratching resistance proved to be very good in the test. We could only scratch the skin visibly with intentional force.
Users who like Roccat's gaming design and would like to pimp up and protect their (preferably dark) notebook lid can resort to the Restyle Skin. The notebook still has to be stowed away carefully in order to prevent damages, though.
+ Look and feel keep the advertising claims
+ Dull notebook lids can be pimped up
+ Can be reused with restrictions
+ Can be cut to fit all display lids up to 17.3"
- Detaches under careless handling and can crease
- Very accurate cutting required
- Fairly thick