by Stuart Le Grice

Created on: March 26, 2008

Here is a slightly different gift idea for that early teen in your life. Many youngsters nowadays have an ipod to listen to their favorite tunes on, but there are a couple of facets of the ipod that don't mix so well with young boys - they are fragile and they are expensive! But, help is at hand - for a little under $20 you can treat that ipod dropping youngster to a funky colored ipod iskin to make their ipod stand out in the crowd, and also protect it should the worst happen and it gets dropped!

The i-pod accessory scene is a massive selection of cases, covers, and other "must have" additions so I had little problem in finding the item I was looking for, the ISkin eVo2 40GB i-pod protector. The price seemed to be around the $20 mark so I handed over my credit card details, chose black as my preferred ISkin color and waited for the postman to do his stuff. Two to five days later the ISkin arrived and on unwrapping it I have to say I was a little disappointed with the look and color, still the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it may well look great when fitted to my i-pod, or so I hoped. Which brought about my first problem; the packaging contained a little leaflet advertising ISkins various products but no fitting instructions or diagrams. No matter how hard I looked at the i-pod and the ISkin I simply couldn't see how one was going to fit inside the other. I checked for a hidden zip or some kind of magic trap door to make the fitting process apparent but alas I was at a loss.

With little option I checked the Internet and quickly found out that the ISkin is fitted to the i-pod by stretching the ISkin and forcing the i-pod through the screen gap. Once this became apparent I was away and started manipulating my i-pod into the ISkin with a mixture of gentle coaxing, brute force and tender pushing. It takes a little shifting of the ISkin to line up the various sockets and dials on the i-pod with the corresponding holes that are pre cut into the ISkin but this is easily done. The plastic clear screen protector is then placed over the i-pods screen and held by the ISkin to produce a sleek looking and scratch resistant unit. Once this is done the i-pod is ready to be used as it always has been, safe in the knowledge that it will fair a little better if dropped or kicked.

Well, the ISkin is more than just a piece of flaccid rubber and it seems that some clever engineering has gone into its development and production. The rear of the ISkin has "unique heat release

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