I bought a dbrand skin a few weeks ago and decided to write about my experience with them. Enjoy.
Bonus: The dbrand image above was taken with my Nexus 6; every dbrand skin order comes with a dbrand logo. It's utterly impressive that the image came out like that; it looks like a digital render.
Overview
dbrand is a company based in Toronto that made their first debut with a skin for the iPhone 4, claiming absolute precision paired with 3M vinyl. dbrand is derived from the idea of "debranding" a phone by covering the brand, logos, and other pesky things like the FCC certification—something both minimalists and maximalists can enjoy.
For those unaware of what a "skin" is, they are essentially carefully cut vinyl wraps that are applied to a device for customization. Besides having a skin for aesthetic and personalization reasons, each skins feature a true-to-life texture based on whatever it is emulating.
Nowadays, dbrand skins cover not only smartphones, but also tablets, laptops, consoles, game controllers, and wearables which allow you to personalize just about any device you have.
The Buying Process
As stated, dbrand is based in Canada, which means shipping times vary.
"We ship everywhere except North Korea"
Unfortunately they don't use shipping tracking, and can only provide an estimate as to when it would arrive. Since I'm living in California, they assumed a 2-week waiting period, but it came after about a week.
Shipping costs an additional 3 dollars to the US, but could go past $10 in other countries.
Options, options, options!
Besides accuracy, dbrand touts strong customization for their customers.
For one thing, their textures are universal across all the devices and categories. There's no exclusive skin for a certain device.
Here are the textures they offer, as follows:
Carbon Fiber | Matte | Metal | Leather | True Color | Wood
On top of that, they offer different colors and types for those textures.
Beyond that, dbrand provides back coverage, front coverage, accents, and sometimes side coverage for applicable devices. The list goes on.
The Nexus 6, for example, has special nexus cutout options. I personally went for the full nexus, however.
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| How did I take this picture? |
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| Dat macro |
The only color option for the Nexus 6 through carriers is Midnight Blue, which attracts fingerprints and is too dark for my taste.
To remedy that, I originally intended to get the Matte White skin but ended up going for the flashier White Carbon Fiber.
For extra spice, I went for the Zebra Wood Moto M and camera cutout, which are free of charge.
On top of that, I contacted dbrand for their limited edition Colored X because I had missed their sale. Luckily, their customer support is incredible and sent them. Unfortunately, they sent the Nexus 5 X cutouts by mistake but will be sending the Nexus 6 versions soon.
Some advice on choosing your skin: dbrand's renders on their site aren't entirely accurate. In my experience, they look much better in real life.
I would take a look at dbrand's Twitter page because they retweet customer's skins after they have applied them. You'll see almost all of the textures that way.
Some advice on choosing your skin: dbrand's renders on their site aren't entirely accurate. In my experience, they look much better in real life.
I would take a look at dbrand's Twitter page because they retweet customer's skins after they have applied them. You'll see almost all of the textures that way.
Application
To apply, they have a YouTube channel for tutorials. In actual application, it took me quite a bit of tries to get that perfect fit. The Nexus 6 skin is more difficult to apply than other smartphones because of the Nexus letters, so experience may vary.
After about 30 minutes of applying, removing, and reapplying, I managed to get it on with quite the precision. Once a dbrand skin is applied, they stay on basically until force is applied to remove it.
They stick through heat and are resistant to water, so they are quite durable.
Final Thoughts
I'm definitely going to continue purchasing dbrand skins in the future. They are the only company I trust when it comes to skins. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook to see their hilarious rap battles, Futurama references, lamborghinis, and more. If you're lucky, they'll playfully disrespect you.
Overall, I highly recommend dbrand skins over any other brand for their reliability and amazing customer support.
One day, I will go caseless like the majority of dbrand users, but until then, I'm rocking the Spigen Ultra Hybrid case to protect my phone and show off my dbrand at the same time.
"It's not a product. It's a culture. dbrand or GTFO." ―dbrand
Thank you for reading, and as always, I'll catch you guys in the next post... when I have time for that.
...Actually, it's summer vacation! I'll be writing much more.
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