Just wanted to give everyone a head's up:
I just got one of those 360 degree swivel cases on eBay for $12.00. There's a seller who got a shipment that was poorly packed, and it caused a bit of physical damage to the cases. Truth be told, the damage is very slight, and to my mind definitely worth the discount. Check out the eBay auction for a picture that shows the damage (slight indentation on the cover). Mine is barely noticeable.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HTC-Flyer-3...?pt=US_Tablet_Accessories&hash=item43a8bccc29
Normally these things go for about twice that price.
As for the case itself: it's a really neat idea, and helpfully includes a holder for the pen. That said, I still can't make up my mind if the portrait stand mode that is made possible by the swivel point is really useful or more of a gimmick. It's not super sturdy in portrait mode. If you push on the Flyer while in this orientation it's like the tablet is resting on a very weak spring. Kinda spongy. And the way it rests on the back cover I'm not convinced it'll hold up that well over long run. Furthermore, the ring that enables the swivel mechanism it about 1/2" thick, meaning that when you put your Flyer on a table, it appears to be hovering just above the surface. It works well in landscape mode, though which is really the most important consideration, IMHO. And the quality is just fine. It looks nice enough. I'll probably keep mine for a while and see how it goes.
Related
Just received the $33 FUSE case [http://electroniccrap.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5_9&products_id=37] from electronicCrap. It is quite a nice case. I really like the finish on both the outer and inner.
The inside is a stiffer type of velvet or something. Not exactly rough, but not as smooth as microfiber for example.
The exterior is very sharp, and business meeting ready. It is a soft suede-like material and is a nice shade of gray. One big advantage of this material is a slightly higher friction grip on surfaces than leather or faux-leather. If I try to slide the tablet in the case on a smooth surface, it is quite hard. I imagine you could set the case on a dashboard and it would rarely slide.
The tablet is VERY secure in the case, and can be made even more secure with a bit of velcro or some other material to fully secure the closing flap. However, with only friction holding the flap, the tablet won't fall out even if I hold the whole thing by the folding cover and shake it.
The case functions well as a stand, sitting comfortably at all three angles on my lap bot sitting and lying in bed. The cutouts for ports are all perfectly sized. The dock port is accessible for something like the HDMI cable. I don't have a dock, so I am not sure if that would fit. The fabric over the microsd and usb slot is put together a little funny. The bottom edge (somewhat visible in this picture from electronicCrap: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10015338/Cases/hy3.JPG, it is the edge below the microSD cover) sort of tucks in where it should not, and the part that tucks isn't really necessary. This is a really minor thing that doesn't affect the function, just the form a bit. Seems like instead of an oval cut-out of one large connection between front and back panel it should be just two narrow strips.
The comment Steve makes about the magnets on his site is very true. They are a little on the weak side to close the case, but it doesn't bother me at all.
I ordered my Fuse case from electroniccrap.com last Friday and received it three days later. After three months of using my GTab "naked", I have to say it is a much more pleasant experience using it in the Fuse folio case. As ramerco mentions, the case feels well made. My only complaint is that there is no cutout for the charge status LED on the front of the GTab near the charging port. Otherwise, I would not hesitate to recommend this case.
It's a good case for Gtablet.
I have the P3, and I love it as well. Is the only difference a matter of the P3 blocking the left speaker and the flap on top?
If yes, the P3 is a few bucks cheaper and I highly recommend that too.
i think the p3 cutout for the mini usb cover is not lined up properly. i don't know though, i only have the fuse...
imdaman99 said:
I have the P3, and I love it as well. Is the only difference a matter of the P3 blocking the left speaker and the flap on top?
If yes, the P3 is a few bucks cheaper and I highly recommend that too.
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The P3 is a synthetic leather PU style case that has a "slicker" feel to it.
The Fuse is almost like a suede feel. They are both great cases. I flip back and forth between both of them to fit my mood
And yes, there is a little bit of an overlap of one of the speakers, but it doesn't affect the functionality that much. It still pumps out descent sound!
I ordered the FUSE case as well and it's great. It's a great bargain. I highly recommend it.
Sent from my TnT-Enhanced using XDA Premium App
FUSE - great case for those without a dock.
I read through a dozen or more threads here looking for info on all of the cases that were compatible with the G tablet. The only noteworthy negative aspect of the FUSE case that I could gleen from the experiences of others was the fact that it did not allow the tablet to dock while inside the case - for that you'd need the CLIP I believe. I didn't see any reason to bother with a dock, so I went with the FUSE (from electroniccrap).
Six months later, I'm still happy with my purchase. The material has held up exceptionally well (my 2-year-old got a hold of the case once and didn't manage to leave any visible blemishes or marks, despite his persistence) and I still like the feel of it. The faux-sued or whatever it is offers just the right amount of texture/friction to hold the tablet 1-handed without fear of it slipping out of my grip.
So, I suppose I should say thank you to all of the posters here who shared their experiences with the various cases - much obliged, everyone.
Just received the new Gumdrop Droptech case for my Prime.
I was surprised by the weight of the Fedex box that the case came in, as soon as I opened it I understood why. The Prime itself is no lightweight, and the Gumdrop case probably weighs half what the Prime does. There are no installation instructions included with the case, I didn't need any, I have owned a couple of Otterbox cases for my phones, if you are familiar with the way things are generally done in a multi-layer case it's not hard to puzzle out. However I think Gumdrop may be giving the general public a bit too much credit here, it wouldn't hurt to slip some simple graphical instructions into the box. The front layer which includes the integral screen protector snaps on to the Prime and the silicon rubber layer enfolds everything. Spend thirty seconds making sure the tabs are seated in the slots and you are finished. Installation takes less than a minute.
The Screen protector is great, I didn't bother removing my old screen protector before putting it in the gumdrop, and there's really no need. The screen works perfectly through both layers. I didn’t notice any diminution of image quality or responsiveness .
Silicon rubber tends to be tacky and pick up lint like a magnet. I was pleasantly surprised by the texture of the Gumdrop, it's not nearly as tacky as I have come to expect silicon rubber too be, the texture of the rubber is quite smooth, and I really don't expect to see it picking up lint like it's on sale. The case is HEAVILY molded however in almost a tire tread pattern, the treads make picking up and handling the Prime very sure, I don't feel like I am going to drop it, and the extra girth makes the tablet easier to hold.
All ports, including the MicroSD port are accessible by prying up little rubber flaps. The flaps fit into molded tabs in the poly carbonate front piece. If I had to rate them on a scale of 1-10, 1 being very easy to lift and 10 being very difficult to accidentally dislodge, I'd say they are about a 4.
Also worth noting, you cannot use the KB dock with the Gumdrop case in place, and the front polycarbonate part of the case does interfere with your thumbs hitting the spacebar when typing on the soft KB with the device completely flat on a table or your lap. Elevate the upper edge of the device an inch or so and the problem goes away.
In terms of protection, I would have to rate the case, as very protective of the device, say 7.5 on a scale of 1-10. Everyone is different in their expectations, but I expect the case to add excellent impact protection and good casual splash protection. It's not going to add any structural strength to the Prime, but I feel the device itself is pretty rigid, so I don't worry much about that. With the protection comes a significant increase in girth and weight, and here is where I think some people will probably get heartburn. Again, this is a case of different expectations and purposes I travel a LOT on the job, I bought a 64Gb Prime because I wanted a Tegra3 Hotrod with a lot of storage to replace my laptop, MP3 player and Kindle. The fact that it's very thin and somewhat light, really didn't even come into consideration for me. If thin and light is a big consideration for you and you use your tablet in a fairly controlled environment then this case probably isn’t your cup of tea. If on the other hand, like me, you drag the thing all over the country, weekly, and use it everywhere from planes trains and automobiles, and are looking to add some heavy duty protection then the Gumdrop case is a great option, and I think right now it's the only option for the Prime. At $59 plus $7 shipping, the price of admission is pretty salty. But when you compare it to the cost of replacing your investment, then it starts to look a lot more reasonable.
Hope this is helpful to anyone considering one of these cases.
QBall16 said:
The Prime itself is no lightweight, and the Gumdrop case probably weighs half what the Prime does.
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As 10" tablets go, I would disagree.
I would disagree as well for the weight of the Prime. Also, the BOX ITSELF has instructions on how to assemble the unit inside of the case. This case is SPECTACULAR for the price as it protects every aspect of your device. I, personally, have two cases, one business( a Roocase Folio) and then also I have the new version of the Gumdrop case for when I am out hiking(yes, I bring Optimus with me in to the woods) and when I am out having fun.
I have to agree that the cost of the case is worth protecting your investment.
ordered from amzon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IGKBC3A/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I am happy with it as it fits my needs. I don't plan on travelling with my Tab, it is for the "chair" toy. The rooCASE is not much protection from drops because it doesn't do much at all for protecting edges and corners. I bought it for general screen protection and ease of cleaning. It does have a nice high quality look and would be a nice case for a business use, keeping in mind the lack of drop protection. Unit turns on and off with cover, that is a nice feature. The materials are a nice synthetic leather, with stitching around the edges. All ports and speakers and lens have access openings. However the port under the home button is not accessible when the case is in landscape, so no charging or tethering, Unless you want to put the sleeve in the jacket upside down. I didn't try that but i guess it would work. There are three slots for angles. They don't advertise it as being used in portrait mode, but it works well due to the whole back being felt.
The sleeve that the tab slides into is not a tight fit, but adequate. It is detachable, I don't know about carrying it around, The entire back is a soft felt material and would be easily soiled, This is what the velcro portion of the jacket attaches to, so it makes it easy to get a portrait or landscape orientation. However it does make carrying it in the sleeve better than without as it is not as slippery. Positioning the tab high in the sleeve makes it difficult to get the notification to slide down. Not a big deal.Take that into account when you lock it in. Materials and assembly look nice. It comes with a stylus/pen attached at the top in an elastic loop. I was surprise at how well it works. This cost about $25 which is a little on the high side for a case, but I am satisfied with the aesthetics and overall feel of the case.
I've been using the RhinoShield Crashguard for about a week now, and wanted to post a review of my experiences so far. FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my crashguards for free from the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. That said, this review is 100% my opinion and is no way influenced by anyone or anything other than my own personal experiences.
Phone: Google Pixel
Items: Red and Black RhinoShield CrashGuard (CG from here on out, since I'm already sick of typing the full name...) and Screen Protector
Size: Overall, the case adds quite a bit of width to an otherwise moderately sized phone (at least in today's phablet-laden market). From my rough measurements, the case is about 3-1/8" wide. This makes the phone feel much larger than it is. The CG is very sturdy, though, and there's no slipping of the phone in the case. It's a thick bumper, as you would expect for what it's designed to do. It does have a sizable ridge on the back side, which took a little getting used to. I must say, I haven't had a strict bumper case ever on any phone, so it felt a bit unnatural for me to widen the phone so much without any corresponding thickness added. The CG made the phone take up much more room in my pocket than I expected, and made one-handed use a bit awkward. It just didn’t feel right to have such an effectively-wide but relatively thin device.
Protection: Undoubtedly, this case adds great protection. I haven't put it through the gamut of tests, but did once drop the phone onto a hardwood floor from 36"-48" without any issue. I thought (feared) for sure the glass would have been cracked, but it was totally fine. There's more than plenty of front and back lip/raise to leave me feeling very comfortable to toss the phone on my desk or end table face-up or face-down without any concern. I felt like the phone was well protected given the design. Keep in mind, this is not at all an Otterbox, but outside of dropping on jagged rocks of the corner of something blunt, I feel very confident the CG will keep the phone safe on normal falls.
Look/Feel: I tried out both the red and the black CGs, and the black is my preference. The red was a bit more "neon" than I expected, a sort of salmon-y/orange-ish red. At first I was little surprised, but I suppose this makes total sense since the CG is a matte plastic. You can see more in the expanded imgur album at the link below. It added a little grip, but not much. I had saw someone suggest the case's grip made it hard to get the phone out of their pocket, that was not my experience at all. This case weighs basically nothing, so it was really awesome that you get some protection with essentially zero added weight. Overall, really like that you still see the phone's construction with just a bumper, but I’m still split on whether or not the odd aesthetic is worth it here.
Other General:
The case seemed to heavily dampen the phone's already average vibrate. I frequently did not recognize notification vibrations with the phone on my desk while in the CG. Phone calls were clearly noticeable, though.
Another item is that the charge port is not large enough for my i-Orange and Cable Matters aftermarket cables. On the black one, I could shove them in and eventually get a charge, but no luck with the red. The stock Google charge cable fit perfectly fine, as did the stock cable from my 5X.
I had no issues with the headphone jack opening, but given that the case is quite thick around the edge, I could see some headphones with a thicker plastic casing, or potentially with an angled plug, not fitting perfectly. YMMV, and again, my Amazon Premium/Fire headphones fit perfectly well.
ScreenGuard: As noted in detail in my imgur link, the screenguard seems to be about 1-1.5mm too narrow for the phone. Interestingly, this was the exact same problem my brother noticed with his Zagg screen protector on his Pixel Xl, so I'm not at all convinced yet this is RhinoShield's fault. Nonetheless, it's worth noting. It has no real functional impact on the device, and the front camera, sensor, and earphone holes align perfectly. I do with the screenguard was a bit wider, though. Not necessarily due to the small gap, but more due to the thickness of the protector causing quite a sharp ridge along the edge of the screen, which you'll constantly scrape across when swiping from left to right for menus and google now. If the protector was wider, this would be somewhat minimized. The surface is slick, too, which is nice...I didn’t feel any added physical resistance when swiping around, and there was no added delay to screen responsiveness. I never use screen protectors since i personally find them useless given how well gorilla glass has evolved, but am overall fairly happy with this one. I'll likely be keeping it on which, for me, says a lot...before I put it on I thought for sure I'd be getting rid of this in a day or two.
Pic: A couple attached, and lots of pics here: http://imgur.com/a/3khHx
Overall, I'm up in the air on if I'll continue to use the CG bumper. I'm not sure if I value the awesome fall protection over some of the functional aspects that it alters (ergonomics, feel, vibration dampening, overall size, etc), but it no doubt will keep the phone quite safe on a daily basis. I'm going to keep cycling between the CG and my Maxboost slim case to see which direction I want to go. It's definitely a nice bumper, and seems quite durable, but I still haven't decided if it's right for me. Here's a link to a bunch of pictures of the red and black cases, as well as my slim case for comparison.
Cheers
I bought the RhinoShield bumper and screen protector and have been using them for a few days ago.
Because my bare phone felt SO slippery in my hands, even basic one handed use was basically impossible and now I can use the phone with one hand quite effectively. Google Keyboard's one handed mode is helpful, but I can also grip by the side and reach to the top half of the screen.
Like this! (See pic)
Therefore, ergonomics is much improved, and I'm not bothered with the width. My hands aren't small and my fingers are long, and because it's definitely not feeling like a phablet yet.
As soon as the guard was on (over the sofa) I was tossing the phone and flipping it on my hand.... Grip!!! I could hold my phone haha.
Sent from my sailfish using XDA Labs
At this point, which case would you say has been better: the rhino or Max?
For what it's worth, I was chatting with Rhinoshield's Customer service to explain my issues with the CG for Pixel (not XL), and was informed that a revision 2 is currently in the works and expected to be ready in January/February.
Issues they are addressing:
- fitment on the volume rocker side to remove the bulge
- easier to press buttons
- enlarging the charge port cutout to better accommodate third party cables.
Honestly, with the amount of width this bumper adds, I would only recommend it as an alternative for users that normally look to buy LifeProof or Otterbox cases. This is definitely not what I'd call a low profile case. With the CG on, my phone is as wide as the Nexus6P.
I personally have switched to a Ringke Fusion as my daily driver and will use the CG only if I know I'll be needing some added protection.
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
A quick look at the UAG case for the fold
Considering its price tag... Do Not Buy
https://youtu.be/Hh3FxwK9Xk4
thanks for showing this, i had no idea this even existed. i thought the spigen ones were the only ones available.
this is clearly the worst possible case for the fold.
i completely agree with everything said in the video.
it scratched my fold. do not buy. stick to spigen
Saw this too late I'm afraid. Bought it via Amazon, it came from HK, needed to wait for customs to process (and charge an extra EUR17 or so) to then find out that the magnetic closure of the phone no longer works. Binned it. Shame.
After watching your video I actually bought the sockshock and using the fiber case
Worst case out there. I got one and not only does the spine keep it from laying flat but it won't stay closed. What a POS. Getting returned. I usually like UAG cases but this one needs a total redesign.
Why do you think the latter one is the better one in terms of the crash
I completely disagree with these opinions.
I bought this case due to an overwhelming fear of any damages or dust to a phone clearly more fragile than a normal one.
I'm right handed, and the hinge cover that protrudes out the back when the fold is opened becomes a great handle to dig my fingers into when holding it with my left hand so my right hand can do all the typing. It can also now be laid on a flat surface and asked upwards to watch a video hands-free.
The bumper protection is solid, the camera bump is well safe and it hasn't blown the size out so that the fold now feels clunky due to too much case.
The price is 30 dollars more than the spigen case, and for a lot of people I understand is prohibitive. But considering what we had to drop on the phone in the first place I wanted maximum protection. And I get it with this case.
However with both this and the spigen case I'm still taking it out once a day and checking for any dust that might get caught inside it and may work it's way into the hinge.
With or without a case there's the chance of foreign objects getting in, and that's no fault of the case design. We accepted this risk by buying a phone of this design and is up to us to be wary of all the issues.
Either way my vote is yes for this case. After a week it's quite solid, allows me to hold the fold a lot safer and I am confident in its protection.
I knew of the spine issue. If that was the only issue I would have kept it. The deal breaker for me was it would not stay closed. I agree it provides better protection that the Spigen thin armor. For the price, they could have done so much better. I have a UAG on all my other phones that one is available for. This is the only one I could not tolerate.
If it works for some, great! Just does not work for me.