Review: Barbie Doll’d Up Nails – Digital Nail Printer
Written on Oct 21, 2009 by Jaime and filed under Mattel, News, Reviews
We first saw the Barbie digital nail printer at CES and were impressed by the concept, in fact it was our favorite toy from the show. What’s not to like? Girls, and boys if they so choose, can print literally thousands of variations on their nails, from lettering and sports icons, to classic Barbie icons. If that’s not enough you can upload your own images to print on your nails. Doll’d Up Nails will surely have girls having fun but looking stylish too!
Getting Started
Out of the box the Barbie nail printer is pretty intuitive, if you’ve ever set up a regular paper printer for the first time, this is about the same routine. Be careful while unpacking though, there are little cut outs in both ends of the Styrofoam packaging that hold the ink cartridge and other parts you need. We actually thought things were missing until we investigated further.
The printer comes with an easy to follow getting started booklet. We installed the software on a Vista PC with no problems and were up and running within a few minutes. The only trick is that you should calibrate the camera on the printer, there’s a little card that comes with it for this purpose. Unfortunately it’s a really a two person job. If you don’t have an extra set of hands, just skip the calibration – I tried doing it on my own while pressing the mouse buttons and ended up with a mis-aligned camera.
One other note, when launching the software we were greeted with an “Internet connection not found” error. We do have an Internet connection though, so the error message is a little odd. We’re guessing that Mattel will eventually have more nail patterns for download and the bugs just aren’t quite worked out yet. Closing the error box lets you move on.
Using Barbie Nails
Let’s be honest, girls love painting their nails, but aside from a few home remedies, we’re largely forced to express ourselves with a single color. What Barbie Nails does, is give kids (and parents if they want) hundreds of different patterns that can be modified to their liking. And as noted above, if you want to totally do your own thing, that’s fine too, there’s a way to upload photos of your own to the system – so if you want your dog painted on your fingers, no problem!
To use the printer, first you must take a picture of the nail, which essentially serves as a canvass where you can manipulate the pattern or image you’re going to print. The images can be resized, colors can be changed and even the orientation can be flipped both vertically and horizontally. After that work is done, you’re ready to print. Insert the target finger, align with the on-screen image, and print.
The printing is actually very fast and you don’t feel a thing. I was expecting to feel pressure, but there was none. The most important thing is to stay still, we had trouble with very young kids being too wiggly. As a result we saw blurred pumpkins and ghosts on their nails. But generally, if you sit still, the images come out better than we expected. The sitting still part is where it’s best to have a friend to do this with. Of course we expect girls to collaborate with each other with this printer, but more than that, if one person can work the computer while the other person sits still, the results will be much better.
The other thing that is important is to follow the nail polish instructions. You should do a base coat (white included) and then use a special bonding coat for the ink, before covering with top coat. You can print straight on the nail, but it doesn’t stay on very long, less than a day with frequent hand washing. This isn’t the worst idea though while you’re getting the hang of the printer, there is some trial and error involved on figuring out the best way to cover the nail, without printing all over your finger.
With that trial and error and the fact that a party of girls might go through a hundred nails in a night, you might worry about the cost to buy new ink and supplies for the printer. The ink cartridges only run $10 and the nail polish kit, which comes with three bottles, runs about $30. I don’t know how many nails you should be able to print before the ink runs out, but I’d guess several hundred if not more, depending on the designs and colors used.
Conclusion
I would have loved the Barbie nail printer had it existed when I was a young girl. Heck, even now it’s fun to be able to print seasonal images on my nails! Girls will love it though and the nail printer will surely be a sleepover hit. The only downside is the price of the printer itself, at $179 (Toys R Us exclusive) it’s quite a commitment. Thankfully Mattel kept the refills priced fairly though, so the long term cost of ownership isn’t that bad. Plus, think of all the trips to the nail salon that you can save with your kids!
The bottom line is the Barbie Doll’d Up Nails does exactly what it sets out to, and does it well. The printer is a little expensive, but divided by the hours of fun, you probably come out at a pretty reasonable number.
Editor’s Rating – 4.5 out of 5 Stars – Editor’s Choice
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