Powder coat is more durable, but when it goes it goes worse. It almost seems as if your bike has been shrink wrapped rather than painted, so once there is a sizable scuff in the coating the area around it sometimes starts to lift. Its doesn't seem to be as stuck to the metal as regular paint. The frame I had done is alu, and the colour I used – a nice grey – isn't a million miles off the raw alu colour underneath so dunts don't really show (and I don't really care).
You'll get pretty much any colour you would hope to find in paint, but generally powder coat looks flat and plasticy compared to paint, not matt, but very opaque looking and without much depth, compared maybe to car bodywork which looks deeper bu comparison. With the right colour this looks great though. You'll pay a fair bit extra if the colour you want isn't on the shelf and needs to be ordered in.
