Pimp My Netbook! #3: Custom Paintjobs and Skins

Shout out to all y'all souping up the insides of your netbooks. Today we're thinking of the exterior. Sure, power under the hood will arouse envy in friends, but a sick chassis will really catch eyes. A custom paintjob or a vibrant skin will transform your netbook from a lil' internet toy into a stylish status symbol.



There are two major approaches to pimping out the exterior of a netbook. If you want a prestigious, one-of-a-kind setup, you'll have to visit the hobby shop and get a hold of some semi-flexible vinyl, an X-acto knife and some serious adhesive. Some real careful measurements, tenacity and a bit o' elbow grease are all it takes to get a truly bad skin for your netbook.

This guy, tankboyben, pimped out his MSI (wood)Wind with a faux wood finish straight from the side panel of a 1967 Ford Country Squire station wagon. He even managed to get wood on his track pad. Pretty sick!

[wooden netbook]

Wired recently got a good glimpse of this customized black leather Eee PC 901. A lot of hard work went into this baby.

For the more lazy and less capable of you out there, buying a skin or a pre-painted netbook will be a better option for adding some much-needed personality to your netbook.

Skins have finally made strong inroads into the netbook arena. Take a look at skinit.com, you can choose from tons of premade designs or you can upload your own. Did you see the majestic purple snow leopard I'm putting on my customized skin? She's a real beauty. I can see that design painted on a Russian mobster's H2. But she'll look good on my Eee too.

More comfortable with a pre-painted lid? There are netbooks a plenty that ship with fancy paintjobs.

A flashy chick with a mind for high fashion can't go wrong with the beflowered Vivienne Tam special edition of the HP mini 1000. Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 has paintjobs ranging from bright pink to graffiti inspired abstract art. The MSI Wind has some bright color options available.

The days of plain black and white netbooks are over. Now get down to business pimping out your netbook!

Check these posts for the word on netbook memory and video card upgrades:

Pimp My Netbook! #1: Games on the Asus Eee PC 1000H

Pimp My Netbook! #2: Video Card Upgrade in a Netbook?

Pimp My Netbook #4: Lightweight App Alternatives

Read reviews and compare prices on the baddest netbooks on the scene over at our netbook site. We've got plenty of insider advice and tech news up for you on our holiday site too. Read yourself silly on these quality blogs while you're at it:

Point Counterpoint: The Debate about Netbooks and Your Image

New Football Technology May Put Refs Out of a Job

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