How to Pick a Phone Case-How can you decide which phone case to purchase?
Phone cases do a couple of things. They mainly protect the surface of your phone. A generic case will protect from scratches and the occasional short fall, and may even provide some style to your life. When I buy a phone case, I’m looking for something a bit sturdier than most generic cases because I am prone to dropping my phone every now and then. Thus, I want to make sure that my phone can easily survive a tumble.
Avoid Junk
First and foremost, if you’re after something cheap, say in the $1 range, there are a ton of cases you can buy on eBay. While the price is right, these cases will not provide near the protection that most people would like from their phone case. In my opinion, any case is better than no case, but junk hard plastic cases will only offer minimal protection.
The hard plastic cases may look great but I’ve found them to often be brittle and prone to breaking after a single fall.
Screen Protector
Along with a sturdy phone case, I also look into getting screen protectors. Screen protectors do exactly what the name implies (they protect your screen). These are generally plastic or glass cut outs that fit perfectly on your screen to prevent any scratches from actually getting to your screen. I love it because my screen protector can get really scratched up and I can replace it and it will be like a brand new screen!
Now screen protectors come in two different flavors as I mentioned before: plastic and glass. The plastic protectors are generally flexible and provide protection from scratches. The glass protectors are a thin sheet of really strong glass that not only provide protection from scratches, but also provide a little bit of strength to your phone screen.
I’ve found on a number of occasions that the glass screen protector had a small fracture line in it after a fall. This is great because it means that it absorbed force that would normally have gone to my phone screen and potentially cracked it.
These screen protectors are pretty inexpensive and in my opinion well worth the price. Here’s an example of one of the glass screen protectors that I mentioned.
Waterproof, Drop Resistant, Hard Core?
There is absolutely no way to point to a single case and say, “This is it, the best phone case!†Every phone case must match the person’s lifestyle to provide the best protection. For example, there are incredibly rugged cases such as the Ottterbox Defender. This case about doubles the thickness of your phone but provides so much protection I could give it to a teenager and not feel any concern at all.
However, that case may not fit the lifestyle of a summer lifeguard or swim coach that is likely to fall, or be thrown into a pool. In this case you’d want a LifeProof case that is waterproof. It’s not super beefy, but is completely usable underwater. This is also great if you’re going to the snow, beach, or pretty much anywhere that water, or melted water could be a problem.
The issue with this case is that since it is so well protected it makes it more difficult to charge, and sometimes phone calls won’t sound as clear coming through the plastic. However that’s easily fixed with the addition of a Bluetooth.
The case that I have is called the Ottterbox Commuter. It definitely adds some thickness to my phone but has paid for check here itself many times over based on the number of falls it has allowed my phone to survive. I like it because it combines soft rubber on the inside and hard plastic on the outside. This provides cushion as well as some blunt force trauma protection. I’ve had the soft rubber cases in the past and they don’t slide at all into any of my pockets, yet for my mom she loves it because she can hold on to it much better, and she doesn’t care about putting it in here pocket because it goes in her purse!
It all comes back to having your case match how you’re going to use it. I recommend taking a look around at what other people have to get a look and feel for what would work for you, then go to Amazon and read the reviews on that particular case. You may gain some insight that you’d never thought of or it may have some horrible defect that you would have never thought of!
If you want to see it in action you can also go over to YouTube and see if there are any “stress tests,†where individuals will drop a phone with a case from any number of heights and angles to see how well the case protects the phone.
No matter what you pick having a screen protector and case will give your phone far more protection than it had coming out of the box!