Before we begin, let’s review some of my personal beliefs. I think that by stating my thoughts about myself immediately you’re going to find a lot more value in this review. The older I get the more I find myself becoming a bit of a minimalist. When I was younger I could care less if there was stuff all over the place. Now I find myself in my home “office” and I look around at the room I designed and find it very low key. Strong earth tones and very little in the way of clutter. Heck my desk only has my Macbook and my HP Mini on it. That’s typically all there is. When it comes to my iPhone, I prefer the “nearly naked” version of cases… in other words I use InvisibleSHIELD, BodyGuardz or Best Skins Ever. I will use an Otterbox when the situation requires it, but 95% of the time my iPhone is skinned only. So, with this minimalistic approach to things in mind, let’s get down to looking at the Domeskin.

So what is the Domeskin? Well, unlike my beloved ‘skins’ the Domeskin isn’t a pain in the ass to apply. Its a ‘puffy’ skin with an adhesive backing, so it’s basically a peel and stick sticker almost like what was popular when I was a kid, only these appear to be much more durable. Domeskin uses the tagline “3D Protection that Fits Your Style” and I can definitely agree with the 3D part. The ‘dome’ part of the skin includes some great designs and at the same time looks to provide quite a bit of protection.

Designs

The folks from Domeskin were kind enough to send me two different designs. I wasn’t terribly fond of the Lion but since I’m a Leo I’ll let that one slide. The ‘Jackpot’ skin however was much more in line with my tastes. There’s a bunch more designs available on the Domeskin site – so make sure you check them out to see if there’s something there that catches your eye.

Protection/Useability/Fit and Finish

The front of the iPhone is where all the action is and Domeskin did a pretty good job of fitting the skin to it. The corners on both skins I received fit perfectly, the cutouts were exactly where they should be, however the screen edges could have bit a bit wider as I found it took a bit of fiddling to get the sides to not cover the very edges of the screen. I definitely recommend when putting the skin on the front of the phone – line up the earpiece hole and the home button hole then layout the rest of the skin from there. That guarantees the corner edges line up perfectly. The skin seems durable enough that laying it down a couple times isn’t going to hurt it.

In all I was impressed with the fit and finish of the front side of the skin. One observation I did have when I put the skin on for the first time was that it seemed to add a depth to the screen that threw me off at first. I was able to get used to this, but initially it just felt like I was looking “into” the screen much like the older HTC devices where the screen is not flush with the casing.

The backside of the Domeskin is where I really felt let down. I’m not sure why Domeskin went with such a small design, but the overall fit on the backside is nothing short of miniscule. As you can see from the photos, the skin barely covers the back of the device and doesn’t even attempt to cover the corners, so when you’re looking it almost fells like I took a skin from much smaller device and slapped it onto my iPhone. Again I’m not sure why they chose to do this, but in the end it just kills what feels like a quality skin.

Finally, the thickness of the Domeskin is perfect. I know I mentioned above where it felt like an older HTC device, but it really isn’t as bad as it would seem. The Domeskin is much thinner than I originally imagined it would be, and unlike those older HTC devices the sides are not thick enough that they prevent you from being able to access the very edge of the screen.

Conclusion

In the end I was very impressed by how thin the dome skins were, they feel great and I think they would do a wonderful job of protecting the device from little bumps and jostles. The biggest problem for me was and is that they don’t cover the whole backside of the device. It cheapens the whole experience and while I really do like the idea and some of the designs, I don’t know that I can recommend the dome skins (especially for a white iPhone 3G) until they figure out how to cover more of the device.

What I liked:

• Improved grip
• Simple installation
• Removable & Reusable
• Lifetime Warranty
• Extremely thin and lightweight
• Great Prices

What I didn’t:

• Could use a little more space around the screen
• Horrible backside sizing

Cost: $14.99

Buy it: Domeskin website

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