Play It Safe with d_skin!

Are you one of those gamers who suffer from slow-loading, stuttering, scratched-to-hell game discs? d_skin could be saviour.

A what? d_skin is a simple, protective cover which snaps onto CDs and DVDs and stops them getting damaged.

The transparent film fits over any standard 14cm disc and stays there, so you can load, play or burn your CDs and DVDs without fear of scratching. There's no glue – just a patented system of tiny clips which fit snugly over the edge of the disc.

The folk at d_skin UK kindly offered to send us a sample of the product to prove its worth. Naturally we were alittle intriged by the product and slightly sceptical of its use with the Nintendo's special "slot-loading" Wii.

The d_skin's came delivered in a rather nifty CD-shaped tin, once inside we got out our Wii and proceeded to "Play It Safe" by applying a d_skin to the most expensive disc we could find, the recently released Wii Fit sufficed as in theory it would cost £69.99 to replace.

Applying the d_skin is very simple, basically you just "clip" it to the back of the disc and provided the disc surface is clean it should receive no further damage from now on. The d_skin is only attached by the clips and can be removed and re-used at any time.

Standing on our official NintendoLife.com balance board we gave the disc a try, after a cautious entry the disc was graciously accepted by our Wii and to our relief the game loaded and played as normal, phew!

We also thought we'd give it a challange by testing out the slot loading drives on our Macbooks, again the d_skin worked as advertised, nice. These results show us we shouldn't of been worried at all, after all the d_skin recently received Time magazine's 'Coolest New Invention' award.

Whilst this neat little "disc condom" is obviously works for any CD/DVD it is particularly useful for games because of the high unit cost.

The d_skin's are already to buy in the UK direct from dskinuk.com, they are currently available in packs of 5, 20 or 50 with prices starting at £9.99.

Overall we agree the d_skin fits its purpose and works as advertised, frankly it is quite expensive for what must be a tiny manufacture cost. We'd certainly recommend the product for those who suffer profusely from scratched discs, however we're simply not that mean to our discs.