10Meters Feature

October 18, 2001 – You can cradle the Dallas Cowboys. You can walk down the street jabbering proudly into your nation's flag – or college colors. You can have a phone that matches the color of your Hard Candy fingernail polish or one with Madonna on the cover.

Motorola's Stars and Stripes

In fact, just about anything you'd to like to see on your cell phone is possible – from rock stars to surf boards, landscapes to Disney characters, even a picture of your (current) honey.

Customization is a natural pleaser for the handset crowd. That's something Nokia learned early on. Analysts responded with kudos for the company's attention to style, saying that fashion sense was a key factor in Nokia's whirlwind growth (not to mention a closet full of phone models).

Fancy faceplates are already de rigueur phone accessories in Europe. But North America is catching up fast.

Hard Candy from Motorola

Nokia is still the design leader, although others are jumping on the runway. Ericsson took faceplate couture to royal heights when it presented Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf an Ericsson phone for his 50th birthday, complete with his personal insignia on the cover. But that was a special phone moment. Mostly, Ericsson continues to produce handsome phones in more business-like faceplate regalia.

For now, Motorola is Nokia's primary competition in the U.S. market, offering up a trunkload of fashionable faceplate art through its iDEN division and primarily for its new Java-enabled i50sx line.

NFL Series, Motorola

Among the offerings: a Hard Candy model, colored just like, and marketed in concert with, the namesake nail-polish rage. Motorola calls them a "high-tech fashion statement with a 'soft-touch' satin-like finish." The phones also come with a bottle of complementary-colored polish.

Last month Motorola and the National Football League launched a line of interchangeable faceplates, also for the i50sx line, featuring NFL team designs. Twelve teams are on board now; the other 19 are coming later in the season.

And this month Motorola debuted its "design your own faceplate" service. It's a Web-based feature that provides a faceplate template, graphics editing tools and a palette of colors, patterns, prints and nature scenes. You can add text, personalize the design with original drawings, or upload photos for faceplate display.

Nokia's Dragon phone

It takes about three weeks for the covers to come back and costs $39.95. Visit Motorola's iDEN store for more on covers and customizing.

In the Nokia realm, Xpress covers are the hot numbers. They come in a slew of colors and designs and are produced for mixing and matching, front and back. Also new from Xpress, phone covers fitted with a picture holder so you can slide in a favorite photo.

Youth Soccer from Nokia

Nokia offers sporty faceplates featuring National Hockey League teams. There are "special collection" models with graphics ranging from pink cows to red dragons and "limited edition" models picturing Disney's Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Goofy characters. The latter can be found online at iCellularTelephones.

While faceplates can be purchased from resellers like iCellular, there's an important caveat: it's always best to buy from an authorized dealer who is selling certified manufacturer products. One way to assure you're getting the Real McCoy is to look for trademarks, like the OK seal from Nokia.

Faceplates can also be purchased directly from the phone manufacturers, like Motorola through its iDen store. They can be purchased at phone stores operated by wireless service providers, like Sprint and Nextel. And they can be found at national retail outlets, including Staples, Circuit City, and CompUSA.

Remember, too, that you need to find the faceplate that is built for the exact model phone you own. Covers don't mix and match between manufacturers. As far as buying inexpensive "pirate" covers, remember you get what you pay for.

That said, What are you waiting for? The spring collection?