Ever since adhesive companies like 3M came up with high-quality sticker materials, companies have slowly but surely been licensing brands, logos and artwork to help us personalize our laptops, car windows and personal electronics. The first generation were a pain to work with because the stickers were often too sticky: put them on slightly wrong and you were quite literally "stuck" and lifting corners to erase stray bubbles or seams could end up ruining the skin and leave it unstuck on one side.

The latest generation are a huge improvement with their increased thickness and extraordinary vivid color retention. They can be cut into extremely accurate forms and custom fit whatever device you have. With iPhones, they wrap around the back of the phone and include cut-outs for the camera lens and an irregular edge that neatly extends the sticker without covering up any of the controls.

But are they worth it? Should you rush out and drop $15-20 to emblazon your favorite band, artist or comic book hero on the back of your iPhone?

To find out, I was given sample skins from the two main players in this market: GelaSkins and MusicSkins. Both use the exact same 3M film, and both seem to use the same die to cut their stickers to fit the iPhone, so the difference is primarily in the graphic itself. But there's more to it than that, as you'll see...

I've gone through an amazing number of iPhone cases in the last year or so, between the ten or so I reviewed for the first gen iPhone and the cases I've been sent for the newer 3G phone. At first, my iPhone cases of choice were the rubberized ones like those from InCase Designs. (they call it a "form-fitting, injection molded material", of course, but to me it's just a fancy sort of rubber)

Then I realized that since I like to slip my iPhone into the front pocket of my pants, I'd often end up with the case collecting lint. Not so good, so I moved to harder plastic shells, but didn't really find any that I loved. Well, I like the Griffin Wave for its mix and match capabilities, but not enough that I haven't kept looking.

Until iFrogz generously gave me a couple of their 3G Luxe cases. What can I say, these just ROCK!