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Whilst I would not call the iPhone 3GS fragile, dropping it onto hard ground probably won't do it much good, nor will getting it slightly damp, or a bit wetter.

I had purchased a Royal Blue Noel collection case from more-thing. It looked pretty good and provided a bit of protection, but I needed a little extra.

Why the requirement for more protection? Well, apart from this ape descendant being a tad clumsy from time to time, and a drop onto concrete of my other phones was not unheard of, there is also the fact that the phone comes with me when we are out sailing, be it cruising or racing. This obviously involves water and, as some might be aware, water isn't known for being free of moisture, and the combination of water and iPhone would not be ideal.

When simply cruising things aren't too hectic so keeping the phone away from the water is fairly easy, but the odd wave here and there has been known to be rather impolite to impose itself where you sit thus you get slightly damp, most unsatisfactory. However, when you are racing it is certain that water will be splashing everywhere, and, as said, this will not be healthy for the phone.

Making calls whilst racing, isn't that a little vain I hear you say. Well, yes, it is, but I don't want it protected so I can make calls, I mainly want to be able to use it for navigation. I have a Garmin GPSMap 76CSX which has the rather excellent Bluechart marine maps installed. This provides decent marine cartography, and I've input the marks/bouy's for the race course and when we get the course for the nights racing from the race committee boat (this is done whilst out on the course, it's not at the dock, thus water splashing around is likely) I'll plug that into the unit and thus we know where we are in relation to the course.

Now, there is a bit of pre-empting here, as at present Garmin does not have iPhone support. Navionics does have an iPhone app, which will cover Lake Ontario, but it's feature set is rather poor. For example, to add a waypoint you simply press the location to drop a pin. You cannot specify a location via lat and long co-ords, which in my opinion is unforgivable. Accuracy is key when setting a waypoint for a buoy. I have contacted Navionics just to make sure I'm not being a fool, but for a change, I'm not a fool, they really have not implemented the ability to specify waypoints via co-ords, they said I'm not alone in wanting this feature and it may be added to a future release.

I'll be honest and say I've not messed around with the Maps feature, or GoogleEarth to see if I can precisely position items to be used as waypoints, and it is something I am actually about to look at.

The whole idea here is convergence. It's part of the reasons I got the iPhone in the first place, and to be able to have the dedicated Garmin as a backup to the iPhone would be ideal and who knows it might be possible.

Now we get to the meat of the review. I would ideally have loved a proper waterproof case and I've seen a few options. One was some type of drybag which you vacuumed the air from when you wanted it to be waterproof. Seemed like a nice idea but if I was going to get a case, I'd also want a bit of shock protection, and this product would not allow that.

I then happened upon Otterbox. At first I thought I had found a perfect solution as in my google searches I found they had an iPhone waterproof case, alas it was only for the original iPhone and not the 3G/3GS. However, they do have the Defender Series case which, whilst not waterproof is a robust and somewhat water resistant case.

I decided to give it a shot and purchased one. I have to say I am rather impressed with it.

There is a two piece shell, the front half contains a screen covering, and the back contains a cover for the camera lens and there is a port covering to display the Apple logo. The shell is rather solid and snaps together, completely encasing the iPhone. The speaker and microphone ports are covered with a membrane, but it's not water-tight, hence why they claim the case isn't overly resistant to water.
The final layer is a silicone rubber sleeve that fits snugly over the the polycarbonate shell. The volume, sleep/wake, and home buttons are completely covered. There are little covers for the ring/silent switch, the headphone jack and the dock port. Again, not a complete water-tight seal but a nice tight fit nonetheless.

One of my pre-purchase concerns was how reactive, if at all, the touch functionality of the screen, and to a lesser extent the other buttons, would be when the phone was enclosed within the case. I've seen some protective cases whose screen covers prevent the touch interface of the iPhone from being used when it's in the case, which to me is just a tiny bit counterproductive. I found a store that stocked the case and they were more than happy to let me play around with it before purchasing and I was relived to find the touchscreen does work perfectly well when the iPhone is inside the case.

The other buttons also work without issue and the vibration effect is not dulled too much either. Speaker and Microphone all seem to work as well. I was able to play music and make and receive calls and could hear calls without issue and my voice was heard by the caller without issue as well. I've also tried the voice control feature and that seems to recognize my voice as well inside the case as out of it.

One problem I did have was with the screen. When I placed the phone in the case and assembled it all, I noticed what looked like moisture/oily film on the screen. It seems this is not moisture/oil but a reaction between the screen protector and the iPhone's screen. The solution is to gently press the inside face of the screen protector against your palm or cheek. This coats it with natural oils from your skin and rids the effect. You may need to do this a few times to fully remove the effect and also to limit the slightly smudge effect doing this reveals. Otterbox have said this is a known problem and they are investigating a more elegant solution to be included in future cases. I wonder if they'll provide a free/discounted upgrade to existing users.

It is also supplied with a belt holster. The unit is attached screen in, and snaps in quickly and provides a good grip on the phone. The holster also doubles as a stand. Simply open the clip out further than usual and it will click into a latch. You can then rotate the clip allowing you to angle the holster on a surface. You then place the phone screen out and voila! a stand.

Overall I am very happy with the case, I've not tired it on the boat yet, but I have purposely knocked it against things and the phone is still intact. It's also experienced the horrific storms we had over the weekend and got slightly rained on and all seems fine.
The case does add a bit more girth to the iPhone but I don't think it's too intrusive and I like the new manly rugged look the case provides. There are different colors available, or at least listed on their website. I went for the all black case, but you can also get a black and yellow, white and pink version (especially for those butch effeminate types)

Thursday will show how it handles the boat, and I'm expecting good things from it. At present I'll give it 8.5 out of 10, post racing that might be upgraded to a 9.0, but I'll reserve judgement until then.

AndyLyman

iTrader: (1)

Thats a coincidence.....

My Otterbox Defender arrived today.....

Best case I have found so far!

Andy

http://www.otterboxshop.com/uk/p_otter_main.aspx