Utterly Shameless - Sony PS5 Console Covers
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,424 words · ~12 min read
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- This video may contain my most blatant conflict of interest yet,
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but you guys don't care because you love the drama. And neither does our sponsor dbrand.
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That's right, dbrand's not only sponsored this video, but they actually bought me two sets
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of Sony, geez, PlayStation 5 console covers,
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assuming probably, that I was going to compare them
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to dbrand's own Darkplates, which I gotta say dbrand,
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I'm not really a fan of the false advertising that you've got going on here.
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I mean, I ordered a Darkplate and this is very clearly light.
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Okay? Can we all just take a moment to shout out dbrand for deceptive advertising practices?
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Darkplate? Excuse me? God, I hate those guys so much.
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Anyway. I've also got a PlayStation, sorry, Jono. This is your PlayStation 5.
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- [Jono] It's fine. - I've also got a PlayStation 5
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that we can try out the official, first-party console covers on.
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So what color do you guys wanna start with today? You wanna do black or do you wanna do pink?
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- Start with black. - Start with black? All right. - It's not pink, it's red. - It's red?
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Cosmic Red. I'd say that color's a little nebulous if you ask me.
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(drum rolls) Ah.
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No? All right. It's a whole galaxy of puns up here.
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Ah, I left my Jerry-rig-everything box cutter at home. Still got my spider comb.
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What does Sony have to say for themselves? Okay, for PS5 consoles with a disc drive.
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Fair enough. Midnight black cover, blah, match them with a matching dual sense wireless controller
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to complete the look. Ah, that would be amazing. Good solid packaging.
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Definitely love to see minimal use of plastics
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and other non-recyclable materials, especially for products like this
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that are not especially fragile, right?
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I mean, I didn't say none. I said minimal, minimal. Okay, hmm.
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I actually kind of like the finish here. Sony knows a thing or two
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about plastic molding and I will tell you that much.
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Absolutely immaculate surface finish on this
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and a very pleasing, almost soft touch feel to it.
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You wanna touch it, Andy? Is it the same or better? - Ooh. - It's got kind of like a velvety feel to it, doesn't it?
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- Yeah. - I like it. Let's have a look at how it's gonna do in terms of like fingerprint resistance.
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Horst, help me a out here. I say,
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that this is a pretty fingerprint resistant surface.
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Well, I've been told that you are the fingerprint king. - Fingerprints are a bit of a bug bear on Mac Address
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and my hands are quite clammy today. So let's see.
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- Yep, we did manage to, I will say you're, (Horst chuckles) you are definitely more finger printy than me,
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but watch this. Without even a microfiber cloth or anything.
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If I just like give it a little. - It's, it's an improvement, yeah?
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If only iPhone screens were like that.
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(everyone laughs) Subscribe to Mac Address. Lots of great Apple content over there.
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He tries to use an iPad as a phone for like two weeks.
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Anyway, one of the big controversies around the first-party Sony plates
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has been that the colors do not match, the controllers they're supposed to match.
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I've heard a lot of criticism, notably from dbrand, sponsoring this video,
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that the black looks more like dark blue. Frankly, I've seen pictures that are convincing
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that the black is more of a dark blue. My sample looks great.
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And honestly, the light makes more of a difference than the the actual difference in color here.
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It's not blue at all. Aargh. - Pull on the PS logo.
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Every single time. That's what I'm pulling on. I'm pulling on the PS logo, Andy, come on.
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I swear, every time I try to do it. It's really easy once you know how to do it.
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I always wanna pull it up, but it's not up, which makes sense,
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because if you were to pick up your console by the popped collar here then that would be bad, right?
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So you wanna, there you go, right. Come off down.
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All right. So let's take this white console and make our lives a little less white.
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Shall we? Oops, this is this side. For those of you who are wondering, by the way,
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as I'm finishing applying these actually dark plates
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to the PlayStation 5, why dbrand would sponsor
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a video showcasing their competitor's product, you can check out
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our full unboxing of dbrand's Darkplates 2.0,
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which also of course have matching skins and all of that good stuff,
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here on ShortCircuit. We go into the whole legal drama
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between dbrand and Sony that led to the release of the Darkplates 2.0 version,
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rather than the ones that are styled like the original PlayStation 1.
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And that styling really, is where a lot of the polarizability?
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Polarizationess? Where a lot of the controversy
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around the look of the PlayStation 5 comes from.
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Though, I have to say in spite of the weird shape
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it undeniably looks better in black just like it did
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when we checked out dbrand's original Darkplates, way back in the day,
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which looked pretty much like this, with a couple of changes.
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Sony of course didn't have to go with a non infringing pattern on the inside.
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So it has the original. Here we go. PlayStation circle, square, triangle stuff.
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How much are these? - $54.99. - $54.99.
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So they're priced about the same, but the functionality is not quite the same.
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So here's the difference. Oh, dbrand's version.
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Darkplates 2.0, obviously available in different colors.
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So they've got this delightful, retro gray, that personally I absolutely love,
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really reminds me of the original PlayStation 1. And they've got a different shape,
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which allowed them to actually produce them without infringing Sony's patent
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on this particular popped collar shape.
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And of course the cooling fans. So dbrand has little filtered openings for,
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here, hold on. Let's actually, yeah, let's go ahead and pop this one.
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For both the intake of the cooling fan on the PlayStation 5
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as well as the other more different intake on the PlayStation 5.
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These are easily, you just got it. There you go.
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Can clean them and pop them back into place, if you're into that sort of thing.
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Now I haven't personally tested it, but Gamers Nexus did a really great video,
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showcasing how much of a difference it makes to the internal temperatures of the PlayStation 5,
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if you don't have the intake fans covered. It's obviously kind of common sense
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that covering intake fans is not as good as not covering intake fans, but there you go.
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Now let's take a look at the red color, shall we? We're gonna put light strips onto a console
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with the Sony plates. - Whoa.
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- Yeah, that's right. See, just because you buy the first-party one from Sony
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'cause maybe you like the color. Maybe you like the popped collar look,
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doesn't mean can't still trick out your consoles with dbrand skins and light strips,
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and all kinds of cool stuff. Did I mention dbrand is the sponsor of this video?
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'Cause they are. They paid us money to talk about their competitor's product.
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Look at that. God, they're stupid. Pricing's very similar.
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So it comes down to whether you care about buying the official Sony product
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or having like better cooling on your console. Let's have a look.
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Wow, camera really does not capture this color very well.
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I'm gonna get my color checker back out here, ladies and gentlemen,
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'cause this has like got a very pinky look to it, in my opinion,
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supposed to be Cosmic Red. Okay, so they actually have a pink one.
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Yeah, this isn't pretty pinky red. I don't know. I'm not saying I don't like it.
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I think it looks great, but the camera says red.
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You guys don't think it has a pink to it, am I crazy? - [Andy] It has a pink and purplish tint.
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- [Jono] Yeah, like if I didn't know the names and you said that was pink, I'm like, okay.
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- Honestly this looks really close to me too. This looks great.
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Maybe this one's a little farther off. I think that really has more to do
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with the difference in surface finish though. I mean we're going through this at our new house.
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What we're finding is, that the difference between one shade of paint and another
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is actually far less than the difference between a single shade of paint
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under different lighting conditions. So it's almost impossible to get everything matching
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under (plate crashing) all conditions.
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Well, I guess, we inadvertently are going to check and see how, yeah,
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how durable it is, if you happen to drop your PlayStation or something.
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Okay, let's just make sure nothing falls anymore. Honestly, almost anything looks better
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than the original white to me. What do you guys think of this color? - [Andy] That's better than the white.
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- Yeah, I really like it actually. Okay, but hold on.
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Now, I'm getting paid by dbrand, but nobody else here is getting paid by dbrand,
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so I wanna hear your honest thoughts. I pay all you guys the same.
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That is my personal Linus Tech Tips guarantee. What would you rather have?
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Cosmic Red or Retro, I don't know, Fuze?
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- [Andy] Are we just talking colors, or? - Just talking color. Just talking color.
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- [Jono] I'm Cosmic Red. - You like the Cosmic Red color? - [Andy] Cosmic Red.
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You guys like the Cosmic Red. All right. God, you young kids.
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You young kids who didn't have a PlayStation 1. - [Jono] But I will have to cut off that popped collar.
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- See I'm different. I'm an old guy who didn't have a PlayStation 1.
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I didn't have any game consoles at that point in my life. All right.
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Let's have a look at our light strips here now. These are cool.
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The PlayStation has these little like strips of light
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but out of the box, you can't change the color of them. But with dbrand's light strips
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we can actually change the color. So why don't we go with not Cosmic Red?
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Actually, I wonder if this one would match better. What do you guys want for the color?
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Help me out here. We got purple, orange, other more different orange, green, more different green,
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purple, other more different purple. - Green. - You want green?
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- Yeah. - Really, green in this? - Lambo. - Yeah.
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- All right, you're not wrong. You're not wrong, Andy. Okay. Now I have no idea how to apply the light strips.
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I don't even know where the lights are. The truth is I don't have a PlayStation 5 console.
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I mean, I own multiple PlayStation 5 consoles but I asked my son.
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I was like, when we move into the new place should we get an Xbox or like a PlayStation or something?
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Do you want one? He's like, why would we need that? (crew laughs)
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- My son. - That's my son. - That's my son, that's my boy.
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My boy right there. Wouldn't we just put a PC there, you know?
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All right, I need to figure out how to do this now. - But then there's the argument
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of playing multiplayer games, too. - Multi-player games, really?
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You wanna talk to people online? Have you met the people online? It's like literally a meme.
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How toxic online gamers are? No offense. Love you gamers, but I don't need you in my body.
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They go here, right? - Yeah. - They must. Oh, there, for crying out loud.
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It's right here. Now this is a little confuzzling.
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It seems to go all the way down to here. Is there another piece? It's only at the top.
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All right. So how do I tell, how do I tell right and left?
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Oh, that's why it darkens towards the end. Oh, this is kinda cool.
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Is it right from the front or right from the back? You know what I'm saying?
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Like, are we doing it from behind or doing it from the front? We could look it up on dbrand's website.
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They actually have fantastic tutorials for how to apply all their products.
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And they will mock you if you don't use them. Bring it on.
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I think you were right about the orientation though, Jono, this seems right.
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It's going on pretty good here. Oh, yeah.
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- [Jono] If it's wrong you can just peel it off. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the great things about dbrand skins, okay.
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They don't leave any residue. So if you ever wanna remove them and replace them with a different dbrand skin,
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or you just get tired of the look or whatever, super easy to get off.
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No residue, no nothing. That's what I always say.
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Quality products from bad people. They do have a good customer service.
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All right, cool. Oh, I'm excited about this. This is gonna look awesome.
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Even if you buy the Sony product they're still gonna get you for these light strip things.
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Oh, cool.
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I like it. That's awesome.
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I mean, of course I was paid to tell you, I like it. But fun fact, FTC guidelines,
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which I am not beholden to, because I'm not an American and neither is dbrand,
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but FTC guidelines tell me that even if I'm sponsored
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I'm still not allowed to say anything I don't actually believe.
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I like it. (crew laughs) So there you go. Whether you like more cooling and dbrand's colors,
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or whether you like Sony's colors, dbrand is still gonna get you for light strips.
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That's right. Expensive electronics tape. You'll buy it and you'll like it.
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