Bodyguardz Armor for MacBook Pro Review

MacBook Pros have a great shiny look, but a scratch can stand out on the pristine silver aluminum. Even if you carry your MacBook Pro in a sleeve, it’s bound to get a scratch eventually. Bodguardz has a solution to this problem; their Armor skin for MacBook Pros (bit.ly/macarmor).Simply put, the Armor is just a bunch of stickers you put on your Mac. The Armor Carbon Fiber comes in three colors, white, black, and red, and is also available in designs and they retail for $50. The Armor is made mainly of a PVC material and has a Carbon Fiber texture. The armor covers the top and bottom of your Macbook, along with the area around the trackpad, the sides around the keyboard, and the sides (where the ports are).

The Armor comes in a long box. Inside the box is the armor (which came on 3 sheets) and nothing else; not even installation instructions. I looked at Bodyguardz’s site if they had installation instructions printed there, but I was unable to find anything. Also, there was no diagram at all showing where the stickers should go; this was especially annoying when installing the side protectors. I started off with the protectors that cover the area around the keyboard. These were very simple to install; I peeled off the stickers and placed them, making sure that they didn’t cover the power button or microphone. Luckily, the armor could be taken off (within a few minutes of being placed down) and re-applied without losing it’s stickiness. I next installed the sticker for the area around the trackpad; here I accidentally stretched out the armor , as you can see in the picture below, but overall installing it was simple.

I next installed the bottom armor. This was the second hardest piece to install. Since the armor for the bottom of the MacBook is just one large piece, I had to reapply it multiple times to make sure I didn’t get any air-bubbles between the armor and my Mac. Finally, I thought I had gotten it perfectly placed, but then I realized there was one medium sized air-bubble, but it was too late to re-apply the armor. I also happened to have aligned it fairly well with the screws on the bottom of my Mac, but a few screws were partially covered up.

Installing the side protectors were very simple. I just had to stick them on and they were really easy to line up.

The toughest part of the whole installation was the last part; the top of the Mac. Aligning the protector straight while not covering up the Apple took at least 10 tries, but when finally done, it turned out as hoped. One thing I noticed about the protector itself was that the hole it had cut out for the Apple logo was much larger than the logo itself, which makes the installation more forgiving. Another easy thing about the installation is since the protector isn’t see thru, even if you get a couple fingerprints under the skin, they won’t be visible. Overall, the installation took me about 20 minutes to complete.

Overall, the armor does offer great scratch protection for your Macbook Pro without making it much thicker. My Macbook still has its sleek profile and looks cooler with the Carbon fiber look. The texture is also nice and adds some grip to the Mac, but don’t expect too much in that area. Overall, my Mac ended up looking like this.

One of the negative things about the skin is that it covers up the sleep indicator light. I actually forgot about this during installation and only noticed later. There is one extra strip of armor included which I didn’t install, because it covers up the battery indicator. This will definitely not provide any drop protection for your MacBook; you would probably need to consider a sleeve if that’s what you want. The skin also comes off easily if you ever need to remove it and doesn’t leave any residue.

Pros:

• Adds great scratch protection
• Comes off easily without any residue
• Looks really cool and comes in multiples designs/colors
• Easy install
• No added thickness

Cons:

• Covers the sleep indicator light
• $50 price tag is a tad on the expensive side

Overall, the Bodyguardz Armor Carbon Fiber for MacBook Pro is an excellent product, and I would highly recommend it. For anyone who has a MacBook Pro, this is definitely worth it.