Filed under: iPhone
Custom "Stealth iPhone" from ColorWare
If you're willing to go the extra mile (and paycheck) to customize your gadgets, but you're not a big fan of the flashy ColorWare colors that we've covered before, the new custom edition matte black iPhone (Stealth iPhone) may be the ticket.
ColorWare has been making drastic hue adjustments on iPhones for a while and recently announced that their color-customizing services were available for the MacBook Air. While they've offered a gloss black before, the new "stealth" iPhone's matte black finish is a departure from their usual eye-catching pigments. I imagine it's also more appealing to a good number of people.
The customization is only available on new phones purchased from ColorWare, and with the matte black customization your new iPhone will run you $675 for the 8GB iPhone, $775 for the 16 GB. A 1-year warranty is standard, but you can extend that to two years for an additional $149. You can find more details on the ColorWare site.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Galley said 2:37PM on 4-28-2008
Or get the same effect with an InCase Slider case, available in glossy white, glossy black and matte black for $35. It's even dockable.
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DistortedLoop said 2:47PM on 4-28-2008
Ummm...$275 to paint the back and edge of my iPhone?!?!?!
I've read it all, now.
I think I could get the same effect for $1.29 with a permanent ink laundry marker...
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Camperton said 10:15PM on 4-28-2008
Go ahead and do it up with that laundry marker. You won't be disappointed.
Are you one of those people who paints their car with a can of spray paint?
Dave said 11:42PM on 4-28-2008
@campteron - I suppose you're one of those idiots who pays as much for the paint job as they do for the car, huh?
I don't care how good a paint job it is, no paint job is worth 70% of the price of a new phone. That's just foolishness. Blow your wad on something like that; you know what they say about a fool and his money.
jonathan ober said 4:00PM on 4-28-2008
wait a minutes...isnt that the iPhone 2.0 hehe...
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Jak Logan said 4:03PM on 4-28-2008
I had them paint my MacBook Pro a glossy black, back in 2006. I just want to share my experiences in an 'Ars Technicha' sort of way.
It took them a month to paint the case and 2 batteries (one of which was recalled by Apple). The cost came to $520 + shipping to there (I know, but I had money to burn back then). I shipped it to them when it was 1 week old. The case is beautiful, but there were some drawbacks.
First, they forgot to take out all the screws necessary to remove the top half from the bottom, and hence tried to pry them apart in the front. So now, the area above the thin metal button that opens the laptop is permanently bulged out. Two years later and the paint is chipping away right there.
The sleep light doesn't work anymore, and hasn't since I got it back. Also, the USB port on the left side loses power now and then, and seems to act like a USB 1.1 because it doesn't fully power some small external hard drives, whereas the port on the right side has no problem mounting them. The transfer speeds to/from my thumbdrive are also a lot slower through the left port.
They do paint over the 'MacBook Pro' logo in front of the screen at the bottom, but they re-paint it in white. It looks really sharp. They use the same white paint for their logo on the bottom too, underneath the laptop. But now it has started to fade away, enough so that the blocky letters in 'ColorWare' are now just a series of straight lines. This happened very slowly, but it is something to note... perhaps I should have put a piece of scotch tape over it for preservation.
My laptop now isn't able to fully close. They had to bend the LCD case by a very tiny degree, but enough so that the magnetic hinges must be tightly pressed against the bottom for them to latch. The corners also bow up at the sides by about 1mm each. You can't notice the bend unless the laptop is closed.
Overall, the paint is very good quality. You can see your reflection on the back, and the hand-rests. However, the paint chips on the plastic edges around the headphone, USB, and magsafe power jacks, revealing the pale grey it once was. The area around the IR port and DVD drive are still perfect.
Now let me talk about something else entirely: heat. When I first got it painted, I read that it wouldn't get that hot. But believe me, it does. SMCFanControl regularly clocks my internal temperature at 158-162ºF. When I'm using VisualHUB (or watching a flash video online... I hate flash videos) my temperature raises above 185º and the fans spin out of control. (I have a 2.16GHz with 2GB RAM.) I have to raise the laptop or wear headphones to quiet them down. The temperature is usually lowered within 5 minutes.
The bottom of the laptop case does get hot though. Burnable hot. I can't hold it with one hand because the area right underneath the motherboard will fry my fingertips.
Fingerprints aren't as big a deal as I had thought. The glossy black paint used is mostly smudge resistant. The closest thing I can compare it to is those painted metal foldable office chairs. The glossy paint is much better than a flat version, but I am curious to see what this Stealth paint looks like in person, or on a laptop instead of an iPhone.
One thing about the paint though, is that it can wear down after a while, especially on the palm rests. I put a clear Palm Pilot screen sticker on the area where my right palm usually is to reduce any wear before it could start, but now the area on the left side of the trackpad has lost its sheen.
The last thing I want to say, is that they should use more Sticky-Tak (or whatever that blue glue is) to seal the screws back in place. After 2 years, all the screws on the sides of my laptop are loose and stick out just a bit. They won't fall out, but I need to re-tighten them once a month or so.
Well I hope that was interesting to read...
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Camperton said 10:18PM on 4-28-2008
Thanks for that. It's the most in depth review of colorware's practices and quality I've seen. You should publish it somewhere central.
James said 7:23PM on 4-28-2008
"Sticky-Tak (or whatever that blue glue is)" it's Loctite thread locker
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Eddie said 11:24PM on 4-28-2008
I love my Colorware iPhone. I'll certianly get my iPhone 2 (once i get it) painted stealth. That looks really hot.
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