Some Interesting DIY Notebook Cosmetic Modifications (pics)

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We never cease to be amazed by some of the creative and crazy things people in our forums do to differentiate, personalize and improve their laptops cosmetically or usability wise. In no particular order we've listed out a few of the better, or simply more interesting, ones to show here.

 

Mounting a dongle on a notebook using balsa wood

Say you're a somewhat lazy person that has a USB receiver dongle sticking out of your laptop and it keeps breaking the USB port when you jam it in and out of a bag. How can you overcome this without having to keep pulling the dongle in and out? Why, mount it sideways on the laptop using some USB connectors and balsa wood of course:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=117945

 

Getting rid of white bumpers on a Dell Inspiron

It's high time Dell got rid of the white bumpers on their Inspiron notebooks, but for those that bought one already, you're not stuck. Here's an example of a user painting those white bumpers black with good results using Krylon Fusion Paint

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=55096

 

RainX or Windex on a laptop screen (BAD IDEA)

For whatever reason there was some discussion going on in the forums as to whether RainX would be a good idea to put on a laptop screen (in case you get caught out in the rain?). Somebody actually tried doing this, and claims no harm was done and it helped to clean the screen and keep it clean:

Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1891312#post1891312

Putting questionable chemicals on your laptop screen is just about always a bad idea, one thing people often use to disastrous effect is Windex:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=115250

It'll clean your windows, but will destroy an LCD.

 

Do it yourself paint job on a Compaq laptop

Forum member wipeout wrote up a nice article about how he painted his Compaq laptop, that was a boring silver, with a bright red paint job

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Dell XPS M1210 Ferrari Mod

While Acer may have the rights to the Ferrari branding of their laptops, who says you can't self decorate a Dell with Ferrari stickers like this fellow did using carbon foil wrap and official Ferrari sticker logos:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=111504

 

Carbon Fiber Wrap

Next time you're in Pep Boys buying stuff for your car, why not buy some carbon fiber wrap for the laptop as well -- the results can be amazing:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1835391#post1835391

 

Desert Camouflage paint job

If you're off to the desert of Iraq for combat duty, maybe a camouflage laptop paint job would be a good idea:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1905924

 

Letter stickers for keyboard

When the letters on your keys get faded, instead of replacing the keyboard (which is slightly harder to do on a laptop, but still not that hard), you could go the cheap route and just get stickers to put on the faded letters.

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=96127

 

Burlington Northern Railroad laptop

A forum member was nostalgic for an old railroad company named Burlington Northern Railroad, so he painted his laptop with the old green color the trains used to have

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Read more here: : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=95324

 

Carbon wrap on Quanta KN1-PM

Some more carbon wrap modding, once again it looks good:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=54808&amp;page=6

 

Fox stickers, lots of them

This modification is all about fox stickers, not sure what to make of it myself

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=72130

 

Dragon on lid of Acer

One of our forum members has an artistic sister who was able to use what appears to be nothing more than Sharpie markers to make a pretty killer looking dragon on an Acer laptop lid:

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Unfortunately, the laptop was returned to the store and the art work was rubbed off to enable that return.

 

Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=73986

 

Carbon Fiber touchpad trim

If you don't want to go all out with carbon fiber cover on your laptop, how about as some trim around the touchpad?

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=98428

 

Racing mod for Acer laptop

This paint job to give an Acer laptop a fast look is simply amazing:

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Read more here: http://www.iromet.com.pl/moje/acer4/index.html

 

Asus A6Ja mod

More talented art work to soak-in, this time on an Asus A6Ja. Even the mouse was decorated to match the look of the lid. Behold:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=43808

 

Corvette Laptop

A very muscular looking setup for sure with this Corvette theme laptop customization, done via sticker:

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=51030

 

Dell Snapcover mod

Dell offers colored snap-on covers to help spice up the look of an Inspiron laptop, but for some such as forum member Delvien that's just not enough. So he cut out some cool looking patterns from the snapcover he got, and gave it a new paint job.

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=40703

 

Dora the Explorer ready laptop

This one is cute, an uncle was asked to refurb an old HP laptop for his 4 year old niece. He fitted it with a new hard drive, battery, memory and freshened it up with a pretty looking two toned lavender look -- all ready for Dora the Explorer stickers to be placed on at a later date.

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=40382

 

Mouse Tray

This is an innovative idea regarding placing a swivel tray on the bottom of a notebook so that it can easily be swiveled out and used as a tray for a mouse.

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Read more here: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3458

 

Putting cheap stickers on an expensive laptop to deter theft

I was very confused at first as to why forum member dietcokefiend would buy a $2,000 ThinkPad laptop and then put awful loking stickers on the lid. His reasoning? To make the notebook look cheap and deter theft.

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Read more here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=41464

 

Asus S96J all prettied up

I'll save one of my favorites until last, this paint job on an Asus S96J by forum member circa69 is just beautiful. PPG auto paint applied via air brush did the trick:

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Yes, the mouse and the screensaver match the paint job. Amazing!

Read more about it in the forums or at circa69's website.

 

Conclusion

Thanks to all of those people that spend the time in submitting these pictures to the forums, and kudos to all for the creativity and craziness! If you'd like to show off any cosmetic modifications you have done, we invite you to post in our Notebook Cosmetic Modifications forum.

 

it's pretty amazing what people can do! i'm usually not a fan of carbon fiber, but that trim around the touchpad is pretty nice...

 

Nice job putting all that together, I enjoyed looking at it, but, I'd never yank the USB to make a lazyman dongle protector, I'd never paint my notebook because there is always more important stuff to spend the money on, I'd never put stickers on my notebook, and finally, I'd never be stupid enough to put RainX on my screen.

Although I have to admit that the S96j looks awesome! But how much did that cost?

 

I'm smitten by that look too, lovely how it plays off of the light. Just ask Circa69 via PM or reply to his thread here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=107849 to ask him that question. Certainly visit his site here to view the video on how he did it:

http://www.circa69.com/paintednotebook/index.html

 

Yup, thanks for putting this cool collection together!

 

Nice that you have put this collection together Andrew,

I especially followed the Acer racing mod. One of the best I have seen.
The Dell 9400 looks perfect this way, very good mod.

But I think the last one is the best.

 

i like the acer one too the last one is just stunning
i have the impulse to run outta te door and paint my lappy too
i cam across these too check em out te were posted here in the forums somewere in december last year but equally good



if you would like to read about it. its here
sorry if the images are a bit oversized
cheers

 

I love the Burlington Northern Laptop! Great to see another real fan out there. =)

 

Giving a laptop a custom paint job (preferably from a pro)...ohh, shiny!

But alas, I worry too much to risk it...especially the risk of voiding the warranty (and having to fight to restore that warranty).

 

Hahaha, good ole redneck Z60m of mine

 

Great synthesis here, Andrew.

I'd save myself the USB port, the trouble, and the ugliness by just getting a BT mouse. Installing a BT radio on most new notebooks (if they don't already have one) isn't more than $25.

 

Nice article! I'm amazed at how creative people can be.

 

I agree Circa69's laptop looks great. Kudos to all, this shows how creative you are. If you have a laptop that is older this is a agreat way to spruce it up or make it personal.

 

Good idea Andrew. I always enjoy looking at what people did with their notebooks. Way to compile them all!

Thanks for including me Dell as well!

 

Where are those carbon fiber stickers sold? Are they easy to apply and remove without leaving too much residue?

 

Some of the paint jobs look nice, but I was hoping to see some actual "mods". I just don't consider painting something a "mod". I want to see some hardware hacking or something like that.

 

Haven't tried 'em, but they're here:

http://www.mnpctech.com/casemodstore.html

 

The one with the fox stickers is mine, half of the pictures were my own artwork. except the photo and the picture of krystal from starfox adventures.

 

This isn't on notebookreview.com's forums, but a guy over at bit-tech.net is modding an old cheap notebook by grafting a Nokia 3310 display in to the pam rests. He even did a bit of painting, but it didn't turn out as nice as some of the laptops here.

 

That s96j is still the coolest thing ive ever seen laptop wise.