This is nifty, but I don't really see why this beats using a case. I've been switching laptop cases for a while (actually need to get a new one) and I put them up on my wall when I'm done.
They're like $15 on Amazon and I honestly don't mind that people can see them since the laptop is going to be covered in stickers and won't be looking like something off the shelf anyway.'
Why do you need a case for your laptop? I've never dropped a laptop in my life (I have tripped over cords before but the magsafe has saved me every time). Shit, I bought the very first iphone the day it came out and I haven't used a cased on any of my phones either and still have never broken anything despite dropping my phones every once in a while.
I have a ThinkPad, so I need to protect whatever else is in my bag...
Seriously though, I often carry my laptop in a sachle bag. It doesn't have a dedicated laptop pocket, and often I like to ram it full of stuff. If I didn't my devices would end up scratched easily, and probably full of dust from whatever is lurking at the bottom of my bag.
I'm also a no case person. I don't remember ever dropping my iPhones. But it is not for everyone. Once a friend took my phone to look at something and he dropped it, shattering the glass. I was more amazed that in its entirety of 3+ years, I never dropped the phone once but it slipped my friend's hand in just that few minutes. :-)
I’ve broken several iPhones including one the same day I got it. The breaks always seemed to happen randomly. Relatively low impact. But once I dropped one, tried to grab it, and ended up flinging it up and across the room where it hit the wall about ten feet up then fell anyway... it was fine. Another time I was hiking and stupidly had my phone out. I fell, landed with the screen side down beneath my hand onto pebbles... not a scratch.
My case on my 6s finally broke a few months ago after 3.5 years of (ab)use. In the whole time I had it, I dropped it maybe 5 times. In the week after the case broke and I took it off, I dropped it hard at least 3 times.
Suffice it to say, I got a replacement case real quick after that.
LOL. He is a really really good friend, a really good person and someone doing a lot to help curb climate change. We were both nervous after YC Interview that day in Mountain View (2018).
He insisted paying for the screen replacement but I didn't let him. I got the battery and screen replaced and my iPhone is on to its 4th year. :-)
Personally, I don't have any kids to worry about, and I never drop my laptop; maybe I'm just careful with it.
My phone, however, gets dropped somewhat frequently, since by the nature of its use, it's exposed to much rougher handling than my laptop (which generally stays at home, or in my padded laptop backpack if I'm traveling). So I have an Otterbox Defender on that, which I'm sure has saved those phones many times. I would never go caseless on a phone; that just seems like signaling "I'm so rich, I can afford to be reckless with a $1000 phone".
I think the case he's talking about adds about 150g or so. If you're an ultralight hiker who's counting the grams, there are probably better options on the market. Otherwise I don't think many would notice during their daily routines.
Those are cool looking cases; makes for an interesting wallpaper. The problem I have with laptop cases, and phone cases too, is that it simply ruins the slick look and feel and makes the device feel clunky, and I don't really care about scratches either here and there. But if there was a skin tight case then I'd consider it.
Were you in the HH facebook group back around 2016? When I read this article I was thinking of some guy there who said he got a new case every year and preserved the old ones as a memento.
I miss MagSafe from a practical standpoint but the non-lit new MacBooks pro was a real heartbreaker. It looked great / was iconic on its own but there were great mods over the years
It's sad to see that in this thread most people jump in conclusions because they only assume there is only one reason why people put stickers on laptops.
Without giving it much thought you place people in a 'category' that only exists in your mind.
There are a million reasons why people put stickers on laptops. And also a million why people don't.
I guess it's best to keep an open mind and don't think you know why people sticker.
There's at least two other options. Once, a friend of mine came from a conference, he was really excited about his stickers and gave me one. I thought it'd make him happy if I sticked it to my laptop, and so I did.
Some time ago a work colleague went on this rant about how stickers are dumb. Only to find a sticker on his laptop when he got back from lunch. He thought it was funny and it became a running joke for a while that everyone who went to a conference would add a sticker to his collection while he was not looking.
That’s exactly why I started putting stickers on mine. I had a personal 2015 Macbook Pro, a 2013 MBP for work, and my wife has a Macbook Air. They all look exactly the same. So I put a sticker from my company on the company laptop and a sticker from a local brewery on my personal laptop and the confusion went away immediately.
My kid stuck a white Apple sticker dead center on my X220. Funny for a minute. When I peeled it off, it left a ghost apple in residue (or maybe a clean spot) that’s resisted further removal attempts.
My favorite hammer has a Windows (3.1x) sticker on one side and a 1st gen Intel Inside on the other.
I use stickers to keep track of my laptop at airports. When you put your machine through the scanners you have to take it out of your bag which makes it look just like everyone else's Space Gray MBP. With some personal stickers on it, it's much easier to make sure I grab the right one when I rush to gather my things and get redressed. :/
Just another reason, for my part I put a sticker because the translucent apple used to let the sun shine through to my screen while outside. It actually took me a while to understand that it wasn't a screen defect.
I put a layer of aluminium foil (held by double faced adhesive tape) because that's the thinnest completely opaque material I could come up with, and put a sticker on it because it was quite ugly otherwise.
5) - 2)/3) while signalling that you've "earned it", and there's a story behind it.
You could easily order any kind of sticker printed and put them on your computer, but that would be cheating. Back in the days when I interacted with the tech community in my city more, there was this assumption that any sticker you have is a proof that you've been somewhere, or hanged with some crowd.
(I sometimes miss times when I had a laptop. I have a collection of stickers with stories with nowhere to put.)
5) Everyone at the company has the same laptop and they want theirs to be distinguishable so they don't accidentally pick up someone else's. This has been my only reason for putting stickers on 2 work laptops.
Yet another reason I haven't seen listed in the dog pile of reasons on this comment: lo-jack stickers; I have one on every laptop I own and one I'm borrowing.
you'd be wrong on all points when it comes to my mac. A closer inspection would reveal that the stickers aren't really stickers, they are concert tickets, train tickets and basically memorabilia I collect as I go along and it has little to do with promoting any company.
Being a software dev has taken me around the world and given me many opportunities, those "stickers" are to remind me how lucky I am.
n) My company hands out stickers for certain accomplishments (being part of a launch, hitting a certain milestone, attending internal events etc.) and seeing the pastiche of stickers on someone's laptop gives you a rough sense of their history with the company and complex signals of social status.
That's as many reasons as you can come up with. That doesn't mean there aren't more. For example, my reason is to give my laptop more grip so it doesn't slip out of my hands. Nobody can imagine everyone's needs.
You don't need stickers for grip (and fact they're not ideal for that anyway). You can do it with a laptop cover (still a sticker, but not of the kind we're talking here), tape, and other things.
Still, sure you can come up with a few more reasons (hence my "pretty much it"). But I don't think you can came with 10 reasons, much less "thousands", never mind millions. And 95%+ would still fall in the categories mentioned.
> You don't need stickers for grip (and fact they're not ideal for that anyway)
You don't need to eat chocolate cake for sustenance (and in fact it's not ideal for that anyway).
It's a minor practical benefit to having a sticker collection on there, which is different to covers, or tape, or other things.
There probably aren't millions of discreet reasons, but there are millions of people with their own reasons, even if they largely overlap, the rationale will be slightly different.
At work a lot of people have stickers on their laptops (myself included, but I don't put them on my personal one).
I've never _ever_ had anybody preach to me about some tech/event/company that they put a sticker of. My laptop is mine and I don't give a damn about what others think about it. I assume that this is the case of the vast majority of people who put stickers there.
This whole conversation reminds me of people complaining about vegans preaching.
At face value, yes, but the obnoxious zealotry often has further implications. I mean, how much of the technology baked into your average web project these days is chosen out of fashion rather than utility? Definitely too much.
pretty much the same issue exist for using stickers on automobiles. I am of the opinion, your property, your choice. plus sometimes it can be very creative or just get a chuckle out of you during the day and that is always a worthwhile endeavor
Oh I've seen this plenty of times when it comes to the possible idea of one being influenced by a brand to the point of carrying their logo/promoting them for free.
Like those who do it are shills, easily influenced, sheeps, etc - and the ones who don't are completely immune to any branding/advertising/marketing, because of reasons (usually there's a sense of superiority bound to it).
Funny enough, this is just an illusion to them, because it doesn't matter what they think, they're still influenced by brands, by the simple fact that every single product/service is branded and signals something to someone, even if the signaling is "I don't buy into corporate brands". Because that's how humans work, with symbols and signals.
To make matters worst, it's when you think you're immune to such thing that you're most vulnerable. It's like you're a sitting duck.
The sooner you embrace we're influenced everyday, the sooner you'll be more aware of it and prepared for it.
To me it means you liked My Neighbor Totoro, you probably also like most of the Hayao Miyazaki work, and probably you like other anime movies.
Other people they might see you as a weeb.
When in reality maybe someone you like stickered it there, and you just know that the name of the thing is Totoro. Only you know, yet it's still a signal to people who interpret that symbol.
Now depending on your laptop brand you could be a major asshole or a normal human being! (This one is a joke, kind of)
In my company I introduced stickers on working machines. We have a lot of developers with different skillsets spread over the entire campus. There are many departments sharing similar technology stacks and needed skills. This helps people to get together if they have questions or ideas they want to verify or share with others not in their department for example. Got a problem with a particular thing in Erlang, Redis, Yocto, NodeJS, Go, Linux or something else? Just approach the guys that have appropriate stickers and get together and exchange some of that sweet knowledge. While on it they might notice yours and do the same.
Not exactly. The nice thing about Merit Badges is that they're standardized: they're all the same size and shape, and they're not very large (around 1.25" in diameter IIRC).
Also, when you put your merit badges on your sash, they're placed in an orderly fashion, 3 per row. They aren't just slapped on there randomly, some partially covering others, oriented in different directions, etc. With stickers on laptops, they always just look like a big jumble.
If this company came up with merit badge-like stickers for all these technologies and had people place them on their laptops in even rows, oriented the same direction, then I would be for it. But the way I see people use stickers on laptops now, it just looks trashy.
> * Resale - By putting stickers on my laptop, I am either going to have to try to remove them again once I come to selling it, lowering my resale price because the laptop isn’t in near pristine condition.
> * Damage - There is a worry that some stickers may leave a horrible hard-to-remove residue, or maybe leave a discolouration to the aluminium.
To which may be added a third - your Mac gets sent off for repair, but repair nowadays means "we take the hard drive out and put it in another Mac because even we can't fix them"
3M adhesive remover is amazing stuff. It beats Goo Gone by a wide margin, I recently used it to remove PETG residue from my 3D printer bed and that stuff is gnarly.
Helpful tip, thanks. Here's the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) in case anyone is curious what's in 3M 38983 General Purpose Adhesive Remover[1]: Mostly methyl acetate, with some naptha, xylene, and a small amount of ethylbenzene. Definitely worth heeding the precautionary statements...
For contrast, "Goo Gone" is mostly naptha-like light petroleum distillate with small fractions of limonene and orange extract[2].
3M adhesive remover will not remove paint. I used gallons on cars to remove plastidip. It says right on the container, safe for car paint and clear coat. Advertised to remove bumper stickers.
Yeah it worth trying Goo Gone first and reserve this for the really tough adhesives. There can’t be many laptop stickers that can’t be removed with Goo Gone plus patience (which BTW also works wonders for removing road tar from car paint).
For dealing with milder adhesives, try peanut butter or vegetable oil. Let it sit overnight, then wipe off. The only reason for considering peanut butter is that it doesn't drip off while the oil does its work.
I'm not averse to "chemicals" per se, but I like to minimize the number of different specialty liquids I have to find a place for in my house.
Goo Gone isn't all that strong, are you sure you're not thinking of Goof Off? Goo Gone is a fairly average citrus-based cleaner, where as Goof Off is based on acetone. It'll melt many paint and plastics on contact. Certainly has it's moments, though, and it's far stronger than Goo Gone.
Yeah that’s a good point. It’s pretty strong stuff. I’ve used it to remove decals from cars and it hasn’t damaged the clearcoat but modern clearcoat is an epoxy anyway so it’s not all that surprising. It will destroy polystyrene based plastics and I’d be careful around others.
Having said that it works fine applied via a rag so you can avoid overspray issues.
I have devoted my life to removing stickers from all my computers. The first thing I do with a new ThinkPad is remove the Intel and Lenovo stickers from the palmrest.
(Tip: If you have a Swiss Army knife with the plastic toothpick, the flat point of that toothpick is a perfect tool for lifting a corner of a sticker.)
The one exception was when I realized I was using my late 2013 MacBook Pro in Windows more than in OS X. I thought it would be fun to turn it into a WinBook Pro, so I got a Windows 10 decal for it:
I have found it similarly satisfying to remove the dealer decals from every car I buy. Although it's probably easier just to make them remove it as a condition of sale.
I have a prediction to make. Let me know if I'm right or wrong: These cars with dealer decals are all from dealerships located outside of California, yeah?
I ask because I have a suspicion that CA law bans them. Either that, or our culture is so anti-dealer-decal that none dare try to add them. (Every decal I've ever seen has been from out of state)
You got that right. I'm from Georgia and when I bought a new car I had to get firm with the sales guy wrt no stinking stickers.
But I'm in CA now and no one has stickers; the tactful substitute is a "complementary" plate bezel with some dealer details on it (name, city). Those are subtle and I kind of like seeing where people are from.
Back in GA we have very legible county (2cm font) stickers on all the plates so that's how to geo-locate other cars there.
Thanks for indulging me. I’m still trying to figure out why this is. I searched the state laws for any references to dealer decals, emblems, etc. and came up empty. But there’s obviously something that causes the statewide practice of no decals.
The Swiss Army knife flat toothpick (Victorinox) is also the perfect tool to get dust out of USB-C sockets. If your USB-C cable doesn't "click" in to your phone anymore there is probably dust stuck in there deep.
Call me weirdo but I never jumped on the sticker wagon. I don't see the point of advertising companies for free. My support would be more in terms of using their services (paying, yes) than paying and also putting stickers on my laptop. Is just because fanatism or feeling proud of using something? I'm not trying to be jerk, but I never understood that movement.
Most of my stickers aren’t really related to IT or a business or anything, save for some nonprofits. It helps me differentiate my work laptop from personal (similar looking thinkpads) and to enliven an otherwise dull but functional design in a way that is pleasing to me by virtue of it reflecting my interests and tastes, if these are ones that I feel comfortable sharing. What would be a good reason, in your opinion?
A few years ago I even saw an Ad[1] from Apple itself showing a lot of Macbooks with different stickers their owners have pasted on it, depicting something on the line of : " the Macbooks are so much loved that people just can't resist to personalize them."
And I still miss the previous work Macbook that I put Portal video game sticker on. :)
Pretty much. They reveal what tribes you’re a part of and your history, allowing others to identify and categorize you. And they’re inappropriate in a traditional professional setting, requiring sleeves to cover them up.
True that. I usually put stickers on just to identify my laptop if everyone is using the same model. A small one in particular corner isnenough. Once I used a large corporate logo sticker diagobally across one corner and cut everything too large. Looked quite nice. My boss wasn't so happy as it turned the sticker I used should have been used for one of the meeting rooms. Not my fault if people are leaving it lying aroung for at least two months, is it?
No, this is what an naive outsider might think looking from the outside, thinking the “hipster” Mac users are just feeding ego, missing completely that they are only doing it so they don’t pick up someone else’s computer at work.
I didn't interpret the GP post to mean ego in a toxic way. I certainly put stickers on my laptop to express myself by sharing a bit of my interests and identity.
I never hand picked any computer in a job. I carry mine everywhere. I never leave my computer alone out of my section and, more over, if i leave it in my desk I don't need to identify it differently.
I can say by looking at my keyboard I can detect if it is mine by looking the most used keys, :)
Or a need for identity? Expression of your interests to an otherwise largely not-caring audience? I imagine having the best conversation at some point when some likes my openbsd sticker...
If you have a tux on your laptop I feel inclined to talk to you. If you hate my stickers (because you hate stickers), you feel less inclined to talk to me. Win-win.
I use a sticker to cover the manufacturer’s logo for various reasons. My choice of sticker was only an extension of ego insofar as it happened to come with a product I purchased around the time I got the laptop.
I put gaffing tape on mine for grip since we have to key card in and out of doors on the floors of our non-shared office. I kept dropping a new-ish 15” they gave me as I often had to juggle things while getting in and out of heavily sprung doors. IT hates it but they hate dented aluminum cases more.
Aha. For shorter term employment makes sense. Usually in these hear parts the laptop will be deprecated/replaced before the employee (e.g. after 4-5 or so years).
I keep an EFF bumper sticker on my laptop for that very reason — advertising for non-profits or causes. I’ve had a surprising (or not?) number of people ask “what’s this EFF thing?”, and in turn had many good conversations with folks about privacy, encryption, Etc. I know of at least one person who dug deeper after our chat and ended up donating to the EFF.
All of my stickers are for companies I've been directly involved with (eg past employers), FOSS projects (Python/PyCon, PostgreSQL), charities I'm active with (EFF, FSF, etc.), or services that I personally use a lot (Mastodon, Twitter). They're kind of a way of saying "I like these things".
I have googly eyes on mine. Not only can I definitely find my computer in a sea of identical MacBooks, people across from me at meetings seem to enjoy them.
The only reason I put a sticker on my laptop is to identify it out of all the other identical laptops at work.
I generally don't get a tech related sticker either. Instead I buy a sticker of an animal or something. Of my current laptops, one has an owl, one has a cat, and one has a flying fish.
Many to most typical laptop stickers don't advertise companies. Also, if you stick one over the glowing apple, you disable some rather obnoxious advertising.
I've also never put stickers on my macbook. And not to keep it pristine either; it's collected plenty of gunk, and I use my macbooks up completely (my 2011 MBP is currently on its deathbed), so resale value is no issue.
For some reason I just don't see the value in covering it with stickers.
Although I did put two stickers on the laptop I'm using at a client's office. Maybe they'll help draw some attention to our team and product, and inform people which department I'm working for.
I keep all my macs. I still have my 2003 iBook. But that one had 2 stickers I remember that it took me a good afternoon to remove completely the crap of it.
What is the likelihood of seeing another macbook with no stickers compared to the one with the exact same stickers as yours arranged in the exact same way? I think that should address the issue with your argument.
I usually put my carry on (a rolling bag) and personal item (backpack) on the bookends of other bins/belongings on the belt, s.t. all the bins are between two large, distinctly-mine items. It also makes pointing out the items which are mine to a TSA agent significantly easier.
Funny enough, for me, it depends on the "thing". Laptop or car? No dice; but water bottle and home PC, stickers on them. I don't go out of my way to sticker them up, its mostly a collection of stickers I think look "cool" or hold sentimental value. For example, I have the skydiving bumper sticker on my water bottle cause, while it is rather bland looking, marks the skydiving trip I took two years ago. The Hot Ones sticker on my tower is because I really like hot sauces.
Overall, I like to do it because I've done it since my high school folders. I used to tape magazine clippings all over it and even made a small amount of money doing it for others at my school.
Usually when I see people put stickers on laptops it's just for stuff they like or things they think looks cool. Maybe sometimes that ends up being a company they like for whatever reason. It's the same reasoning someone would use picking out t-shirts. The goal is to not give corporations free advertising.
But there is so much more you can put there.. mine has:
Kids sticker my daughters put there, cartoon like power rangers(some new one but same concept)
Trail running club that I ran some races with
Some star wars sticker
Friends startup company
Postgress meetup(cool design)
Few coworking spaces I been to
Muai Thai stadium in Bangkok
Couple conference stickers(swift and ml)
Running sandals that I like
Couple ski resort stickers that I bought for my kids and they put it on my laptop
Climbing festival
Canadian Alpine club
Only one that is company advertisement for free is Mammut outdoor brand. I really like their branding for whatever reason, so I have few of their things
I just care about some visual distinctiveness - useful for both identification and aesthetics. Never put them on for a company I don't work for, though, just little bits of art from assorted Etsy shops.
This behavior isn’t isolated to stickers. It’s no different than wearing a Star Wars shirt. It does seem silly though when the sticker is for a company that like, sends emails for you or something
I had forgotten my laptop while going through security at the Detroit airport. So when loudspeaker announcements happened, I went back to collect the laptop. The security guy asked "Why type of laptop is it?" intending to check if it's really mine, I replied: "One with lots of stickers". "There you go" he said handing me my laptop that was inside a protective cover.
>I don't see the point of advertising companies for free. My support would be more in terms of using their services (paying, yes) than paying and also putting stickers on my laptop.
So you won't advertise for free, but you'll pay the company to advertise for them?
I have 3 on mine: our company sticker, and 2 satirical ones related to what we do (we audit Fedex and UPS accounts; I have a "FedUp" and an "Oops" stylized like those logos)
That's really not my experience. A significant portion of people I meet, including technical people, articulate some form of "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care" when the topic comes up.
Well, the stickers are not for you then. But like saying: "Snowden is a hero", there is a certain feeling of bravery, in the face of the biggest bully the world ever knew, don't you think?
I used a flat white Dbrand skin and put my stickers on top. My stickers have 100% coverage: https://twitter.com/rxcs/status/888214143097987072. No problems after 2 years aside from some slight fading of the colors on the reflective stickers.
If OP is in this thread, check out 3M 1080 (or newer) series. It is used on cars, designed to not bubble or leave residue, and comes in clear.
3M 1080 is great stuff - I avoided clear vinyls however as i found they lost the metallic look due to them being a little too glossy, even with the matte ones.
The Apple logo is recessed enough that I could trace it easily with an x-acto knife. The stickers I used didn't stick to it very well, interestingly, and just peeled right off.
- orange peel refers to any paint layer, not just clearcoat. (almost all, if not all, cars today are shot with at least 2 stage, but older and maybe some cars may be a single paint coat, where orange peel can still be exhibited).
- it's not from spraying it improperly, which can be a cause, but more typically that the spraying conditions (from paint mix to atmospheric conditions, even inside a booth) aren't "ideal". most new cars are robot sprayed with perfect spray control, and almost all new cars exhibit a small degree of orange peel.
even ferraris have orange peel from the factory. this is why high dollar detailers do a "paint correction" as part of their work, even on a brand new car.
Grab some magnet sheets, place sticker, and cut out. Makes them a bit more durable in that you can move them around, rather than only being able to stick once.
Has anyone ever tried this with ThinkPads, with the rubberized matte coating?
I was looking at the skins sold on eBay, and wondering whether they'd mar the coating. The old coatings hold up very nicely for over a decade, and I don't want the skin to react with the coating, nor to later leave behind an adhesive that can't be removed without ruining the coating.
I'm also wondering whether the skins could be transplanted, like if one laptop breaks in a hard-to-repair way, so you move your SSD and skin full of decals to the replacement laptop.
(I have an unapplied backlog of nerdy decals, to make the perfect social nerd cafe laptop out of a spare Coreboot X200. So long as being social doesn't mar the coating, because priorities.)
I've pretty much had a ThinkPad with me since the mid '90s, and, and used to carry them everywhere with me, usually one or more trips a day. One of them I got a custom printed skin, it wasn't that expensive, maybe $50... I peeled that skin of ~3 years later when I got a new laptop, and the top looked PRISTINE. I realized at that time: While the normal finish wears pretty well, it does wear. The skin totally protected it.
I used to be in the anti sticker camp, but then someone nearly walked off with my identical MacBook Pro at Newark. After that, I've gone through three laptops and each one ends up caked in stickers from various customers and conferences. I don't have to risk someone picking up my MacBook unless they have the same arrangement IP video tech and Seattle sports stickers.
Another way is to just use a body case or "shell" and applying the stickers to that. It may not perfectly match the original aluminum look but it provides more protection and personalization.
I use a hard case on my work laptop for similar reasons - it's not my laptop, and when I give it back I want to keep the stickers! (I get a bit attached after using a stickered-up machine for a while.)
The framed set of stickers at the bottom is kinda what I have in mind.
IT departments at larger tech companies may be interested in this. Every time an employee leaves or they recall equipment they need to remove stickers, a manual and time consuming process. The key question is whether the amount of time to apply this coating is significantly less than removing individual stickers later?
I bet Louis Rossman would have some thoughts on this. He had a customer who became a local meme after having a tantrum about sticker residue. These things can be trivial or impossible to remove depending how much you know about the adhesive and removal methods.
My hobby project is collecting photos of stickered laptops [1]
From my impression and experience, it‘s like saying „I am root. This is MY device“ more than anything else. So I‘d say your last point applies in most cases.
Although Salesforce-people seem to have a special relationship with their stickers [2]. They have tons of them, but usually none from other companies. They seem to be achievment-badges.
Yeah, I think you mostly got it. Same reason people wear clothes with large, prominent brand names on them, or movie references, or whatever. Legible clothing generally. Bumper stickers. Same stuff.
I can spot mine easily at a distance, and it's very unlikely that someone else will have theirs marked similarly. Useful in situations like security lines at airports (Please step to the side sir, while we pat you down and someone nicks your laptop from the baggage scanner), or even in an office where everyone has the same laptop.
> Resale - By putting stickers on my laptop, I am either going to have to try to remove them again once I come to selling it, lowering my resale price because the laptop isn’t in near pristine condition.
Small remark, I've been rocking stickers on my macbook for years now and have "clean" periods in between, you can take stickers off the aluminum without any issue, and the few times I've had residue left it's easy to take it off with some alcohol or iso. After this it's 100% clean and you can't see there have been stickers on it, it's no issue at all
It's weird that this is being talked about as if it's not something that companies/sellers have been offering for ages.
This "special" car vinyl with the air channels is 3M's Controltac product. You can find many sellers on eBay/AliExpress [1] or the myriad of other Chinese web stores offering this product.
Wonderful idea! My friends drew some brilliant illustrations on my Macbook Pros ( https://i.imgur.com/O4mGZqZ.jpg ) using marker, directly on the case. Not soon afterward, the anti-reflective coating went bad and I tried to took it to Apple Store and was predictably told it's not possible to repair the screen without swapping out the entire screen. So 4 years later I am still using a never paired machine. I wish I knew about this kind of wrapping earlier.
I just buy some dbrand skins for mine. I have no idea if other manufacturers' stuff is good, probably is but I've had the best experience with them so far. I buy and apply whichever skin I like the most at that time and put stickers on it to my heart's content. Plus the skins are pretty tough so I get scratch protection and it comes off without leaving a mark in case I need to sell it. The guy who bought my old MBP didn't have anything to complain about.
But that's almost a harder decision - you can certainly buy a bland colored skin to put stickers on, but if you're going to the effort of skinning your laptop, why not pick an interesting skin?
Fun fact: a razor blade from a box cutter, and some rubbing alcohol will remove any sticker off a MacBook’s aluminum case without scratching the MacBook.
Man, I wish I had done that with my last laptop! There were some stickers that I will never get again, because the communities have since been extinguished, some were personal gifts, some were mementos of specific events...
Not too optimistic about getting them off undamaged, seeing as they've been caked into the ThinkPad plastic for a couple years, and some have even took some scratches and tears...
Lot of effort for something you can buy pre-cut, off the shelf at many places. you can get matching color, or any number of background designs.
his only covers the top. i have top, bottom, keyboard surround, and trackpad covered.
i'm most ambivalent about the trackpad. the silky smooth texture of a naked pad is amazing. but i really hate how it picks up rub marks after a relatively short period.
Love this. My old MacBook was covered in stickers but I grew out of most of them and removing them was a giant pain. Plus, like you mentioned, resale value took a hit. On my new MacBook, I've kept it sticker-free due to my past experience. This would give me the freedom to slap some new stickers on there knowing they're easily removable down the line.
As a couple others have mentioned, if you keep the stickers carefully contained to the aluminum surfaces of the computer, acetone will take them right off and will not damage the metal.
I wanted to downsize my laptop recently and found that the places to sell hard to find amounts offered ...not worth it.
One thing I found amusing is that they sell whole packs of "laptop stickers" on Amazon. I just sort of assumed they were like travel stickers you gather over time but.... I guess not.
If you live in a place that has a strong tech market, then reselling is worth it (on craigslist).
Apple gear resells really well, in Palo Alto I usually get 60-70% of the cost on resale. In some instances this makes it worth it to buy new gear every year (particularly with phones) to maximize the resale value and keep new hardware.
I think that might work for certain popular brands - Dell XPSs certainly crossed my mind, as well as the Lenovo Thinkpads. Both are likely to have a vinyl equivalent available that could be used, although I'd want to thoroughly QC how the Thinkpad lid holds-up with the residue on removal.
When it was time for me to get a new laptop I put my old macbook in the office scanner, got a high-dpi scan of the whole thing.
Then I ordered a custom full-size sticker for my new macbook that has all the stickers of my old macbook. Then I kept stickering on top. Final result: https://photos.app.goo.gl/VQ75mPshvzs6ubf87
I am very happy with it, even though it doesn't look half as nice as what this person did. The combination of old and new stickers on the laptop is fun, and the whole thing took me 30 minutes to do.
I became disenfranchised with the whole sticker thing, just another one of the many cultural distractions that companies use to make us feel like we are part of something and in exchange pay us less.
There is a brand that makes screen (or body) protectors for phones, tablets and laptops. I have used their phone protectors and have always been happy. I don't agree with the downsides listed for this approach, they offer matte finish, I have never had an issue with the protectors yellowing, and I can source (buy) them right now.
I had one of these on a 2008 MacBook, and it started yellowing and flaking around 2–3 years later, most noticeably on parts that had considerable heat (like the bottom case and removable battery).
If it was just used for the top case, I think it should be fine. Mine has yellowed, but was autographed by my favourite author. :)
I like the idea of using the wrap plastic used for cars, maybe with fancy colours, skipping the stickers. When I am done with the machine I could remove the wrap and have a brand new looking case. Actual hard shell covers do protect the machine but they do get dirt inside that does add wear patterns.
Has anyone done anything really cool with automotive wraps and laptops? Not necessarily on Apple products but on PCs that don't have a tough aluminium shell?
Serendipitous! I've been agonizing over this very question for the last few months. I have a few rare and interesting stickers that I'd love to stick on my Macbook, but I haven't been able to find any transparent/color-matching covers that would let me keep them after I switch computers. Really hope this product gets sold! (Or that Graham makes a one-off for me. ;)
I like this idea although I use vinyl stickers on my MacBook and then, before needing to sell it, I peel them off again. They leave very little residue which I clean with some isopropyl alcohol and they prevent the case from being scratched because they're covering it. For me there's not much difference between a vinyl sheet then stickers or just the stickers themselves.
There is a company that serves precisely cut skins of different colors for most popular tech. The author basically reinvented DBrand. Here is a section for MacBook Pro on the site: https://dbrand.com/shop/apple-macbook-pro-15-skins-touch-bar
That's truly amazing how many people have difficulties differentiating their laptops from the others. It would be a pity if they were just covering up their need to signal the world how special they are and how important their interests are. Glad that it's not the case, it would be pretty stupid to do this on the internet, right?
> their need to signal the world how special they are and how important their interests are
Honestly, the compulsion to accuse others of narcissism for something as harmless as putting stickers on their personal property screams "LOOK AT ME, I'M SPECIAL" much more.
I was accusing others for being insincere, not narcissistic. Guess you've read only the quoted part of my message, hope the reason is not some sticker on the inside blocking the view.
I have nothing against being narcissistic, provided you are honest about it. If I say that you are trying too hard with your "No u!" game, will you accuse me of trying too hard?
A similar system, I'm sure, but he got the material specifically to match the metal of the MacBook and is gauging if other people are interested in it.
You could just use a clear vinyl and trim it to size before sticker bombing your laptop. Matte or gloss depending on your taste, and stick to the automotive ones for UV-resistance and lasting quality. I’ve been doing this for years on work laptops using a 3M clear vinyl wrap.
I think there's a large overlap between image-conscious Mac users and image-conscious developers, for whom laptops are an expression of self or something like that.
When I had a black Lenovo X1, I glued a single sticker in the center (a silver cutout of the Imperial Sigil from Star Wars) and stuck all the “other” stuff (conference logos, mementos, etc.) to the underside.
This was part of a long-running joke about my joining the Dark Side (I work for Microsoft), and was all the individuality my laptop really needed.
My last work MacBook had the same sigil stuck under the Apple logo (back when it was lit) and a couple of other stickers on the underside as well, just so I could single it out, but I never really went for glueing lots of stickers to my machines, and these days I carry a Surface Pro (which folds at the back) or a Surface Laptop (which I like for its clean looks), so stickers are mostly out (I make do with a big high-res Stormtrooper close-up photo on my login screens, which are usually the first thing people see when I set up for a presentation :))
I like the idea, though, and wonder if I will end up combining it with a large decal of some kind. Printing a partially opaque monochrome image on that big a Surface (pun not intended) is... interesting.
That's cool. It's a nice idea, but I think cases are just a better, easier way to do it.
That said, I use a case and have no stickers. Everyone else I see has tons of stickers on their MacBooks, though nobody seems to put stickers on their Windows laptops.
I have 12 small whiteboards (14x14 in) mounted on my wall that I add stickers to now. The only stickers on my laptop are ones I have duplicates of. It's a nice collection and it's scaled more than the back of my laptop has.
If you're looking for something like this that also includes a texture or color change then the company dbrands makes a nice product. They're not really over priced, they apply easily, and it is very easy to remove.
I used screen cleaner gel to clean up some old macbooks with pile of years old stickers and it worked without any trace left I can notice. And I guess it is already safe for electronics. No special formulas needed.
Once I decided to remove all stickers from my 2013 mbp. A piece of cloth and small quantity of vodka did the job surprisingly well. No residue at all. (Disclaimer: I’m from Eastern Europe)
I’ve peppered my laptop with stickers. Not out of some desire to promote the services they embody, but rather because it makes my laptop look less appealing to a would-be thief.
I used to put stickers on my laptop, but I lost them all when I had to bring them to the genius bar for some work. Would this be re-aplicable? I would think no, right?
So it remains sticky when removed, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to fit quite as snuggly the second time around. Interesting idea though, but my initial reaction would be no, not re-applicable.
Am I the only person who is sick to death of Macs on their network? My mac users take up so much more time than the Windows majority for their overpriced hipster-books.
The ones that really get me are the ones that use MS Office all day. Wrong computer for the job.
May be we need to fix the gums in stickers to peel off easily - then it could work for all laptops/devices. Another option could be put an easily peelable tape and then sticker on top of it.
The technology already exists, but not all stickers you might want to stick to a laptop has that good type of sticky chemistry. So the implication is that the achieve such a "fix" would require regulation to limit the types of stickers that are generally available. It would potentially be global as well, since people travel and put stickers from travel on their gear. Also, sometimes people put bumper stickers on laptops. Should we limit the chemistry of bumper stickers? Obviously this leads to madness, and I would not want such burdensome regulation.
the most interested part of this article was that, people are actually worrying about sticking a sticker on their laptop. I would never resale a laptop with my hard drive on it, and nowadays most laptops (and definitely all macbooks have soldered hard disks)
Checkout a photo - https://imgur.com/a/nWz95Ex
They're like $15 on Amazon and I honestly don't mind that people can see them since the laptop is going to be covered in stickers and won't be looking like something off the shelf anyway.'