Well, after seeing the troubles with the StealthGuards and positive reviews from an owner of a Otterbox, I purchased myself one off eBay.
First off, I chose the Defender line. Toughest of the tough. I've seen videos of people throwing their phones out two story windows without damage. Not that I've tried it or anything.
After popping the case out of the package, the first thing I noticed was the three layers of protection: rubber bumper, hard plastic shell, and "clear membrane". Clear membrane seems more like a euphemism for plexiglass in my opinion, but it is built-in to the hard plastic case. This removes that pesky step of applying a film protector that never looks right.
Assembling the case was very easy. The hard case snaps together and then goes over the rubber bumper. I did notice that the rubber seal (by the microphone) needed a little adjustment as well as the bumper itself. After about a minute of adjusting the phone was in. When they say protection, they mean it. Aside from drowning the phone or it being run over by a car, it makes the phone seems near indestructible.
These were the only faults I seen with the case:
No desktop or car dock use. You can't get to the pin connectors at the bottom. Not a huge loss and the case is easily removed so you can put it in the docks if you want to spent a minute or two doing so.
Headphone jack. The jack is protected, but I had to whittle away at a 3.5mm car adapter cord to hook it up to my auxilary port due to the port protection. The adapter cord was a bit thicker than a regular headphone cord. My headphones had no problem getting in and out though this could be an issue with certain sets of headphones.
Possible heat issues. Mind you, my phone is OC'ed and I was having issues with SetCPU, my phone stuttered during a game of Angry Birds. However, this may just be my phone. Probably need to look into this more.
Power button. While all the ports and buttons are accessible, I've been having difficulty pressing the power button. It isn't that hard to press, but I've helped mitigate it by activating trackball wake.
Some additional things worth mentioning... the "membrane" gives the screen and almost resistive-like feel. If you've used a newer resistive touch screen you'll know what I mean, but there is little difficulty with using the screen. I found it just a bit more difficult to get at the edges of the screen.
The important elements of the phone (camera, mic, second mic, speaker, charging light, light and proximity sensor are all free of obstruction and work excellently.
The case does add some weight and thickness, but not much more than what I was used to carrying my phone in the pouch that the N1 came with.
Any comments or questions feel free to shoot away...
First off, I chose the Defender line. Toughest of the tough. I've seen videos of people throwing their phones out two story windows without damage. Not that I've tried it or anything.
After popping the case out of the package, the first thing I noticed was the three layers of protection: rubber bumper, hard plastic shell, and "clear membrane". Clear membrane seems more like a euphemism for plexiglass in my opinion, but it is built-in to the hard plastic case. This removes that pesky step of applying a film protector that never looks right.
Assembling the case was very easy. The hard case snaps together and then goes over the rubber bumper. I did notice that the rubber seal (by the microphone) needed a little adjustment as well as the bumper itself. After about a minute of adjusting the phone was in. When they say protection, they mean it. Aside from drowning the phone or it being run over by a car, it makes the phone seems near indestructible.
These were the only faults I seen with the case:
No desktop or car dock use. You can't get to the pin connectors at the bottom. Not a huge loss and the case is easily removed so you can put it in the docks if you want to spent a minute or two doing so.
Headphone jack. The jack is protected, but I had to whittle away at a 3.5mm car adapter cord to hook it up to my auxilary port due to the port protection. The adapter cord was a bit thicker than a regular headphone cord. My headphones had no problem getting in and out though this could be an issue with certain sets of headphones.
Possible heat issues. Mind you, my phone is OC'ed and I was having issues with SetCPU, my phone stuttered during a game of Angry Birds. However, this may just be my phone. Probably need to look into this more.
Power button. While all the ports and buttons are accessible, I've been having difficulty pressing the power button. It isn't that hard to press, but I've helped mitigate it by activating trackball wake.
Some additional things worth mentioning... the "membrane" gives the screen and almost resistive-like feel. If you've used a newer resistive touch screen you'll know what I mean, but there is little difficulty with using the screen. I found it just a bit more difficult to get at the edges of the screen.
The important elements of the phone (camera, mic, second mic, speaker, charging light, light and proximity sensor are all free of obstruction and work excellently.
The case does add some weight and thickness, but not much more than what I was used to carrying my phone in the pouch that the N1 came with.
Any comments or questions feel free to shoot away...
