Tag Archives: case

Review: 1byone Battery Case for iPhone 6 and 6s

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Rating: ★★★★½

PROS: 

  • Adds at least an entire extra charge to your iPhone
  • Acts as a durable case for your phone
  • Two bumper colours included in the box
  • Includes audio cable so headphones can still be used

CONS:

  • Adds a little weight to your phone
  • Case charges with microUSB – could be seen as a minor downside to some

RRP £32.99, best price at time of writing £25.99 on Amazon

This particular product was an interesting one for me. I, for the most part (and we do have our disagreements occasionally!), love my iPhone 6 and use it extensively in my day-to-day life. And there’s no doubt about it – it’s a fantastic phone with huge amounts to offer – without even mentioning the new iPhone 6s that has countless additional new features (some of which I think are great, others a tad gimmicky). However, nothing can escape the fact that battery life on most high-end smartphones is still nothing to shout about.

So what can you do about this? Imagine the typical scenario – you’re out and about in the countryside for a weekend or you’ve made your way to a music festival. And half way through your trip your phone battery hits critical. We’ve all been there. Well, there’s really two choices if you haven’t got any form of mains power. Either, you can buy a power bank such as this one (I own a similar model by the same brand), or you can buy a bespoke design battery case for your phone.

And that’s exactly what this is. It works just like any other power bank you might have come across. You simply slide the phone into the case, making sure the lightning port is lined up correctly and pop either of the two included bumpers over the top. On the back, you have a simple power button together with a 4-LED charge indicator. Simply press and hold the rear power button until you iPhone starts charging and that’s all you need to do. You can tap the power button whenever the device is switched on to see the current battery status. When you’re done, you simply press and hold the power button once again and the battery case switches off.

So how well does this one work? Fairly well indeed. It charged my iPhone nice and quickly, and because this device is MFI certified, you can be sure that you won’t get any compatibility issues or charging errors on your phone. I comfortably got an entire phone charge out of the case with a little juice to spare, so for those extended trips where you could use the backup power, this is a must have.

Would I keep it permanently attached to my phone? Probably not. You can by all means do that if you want to – you simply charge the battery case with the included cable and then use that to charge your phone. But I probably wouldn’t. It’s a little too big to keep on my phone all the time, and I would probably keep other cases on the phone when I didn’t need the extra capacity.

However, for its intended purpose, it does a fantastic job and it’ll definitely be a vital tool for when I do go on my travels. It’s ideal for people who enjoy camping, long treks, visiting rural countryside or really anything that keeps you away from the mains for a while. Even those tedious long haul economy flights without a power socket.

Overall, I’m delighted with the device and it certainly will end up permanently in my travel backpack. It’s not the cheapest portable charger on the market at around £30, but the benefit of being able to leave it attached to your phone without cables dangling all over the place certainly outweighs any increased expense.

Buy now from Amazon

Review: Urban Armor Gear Scout Folio iPhone 6 case

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Rating: ★★★★☆

Phone cases are often a really difficult issue for me – trying to find a case at the right price which is durable and designed with the usability in mind is often tedious.

I recently managed to get my hands on one of Urban Armor Gear‘s latest offerings for my iPhone 6. They have a very large selection of cases for most recent phone models and they offer you a wide variety of case types. Being a bit obsessed with keeping my phone’s screen scratch and dirt free, I opted to go for their iPhone 6 Scout Folio case.

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The case arrived very quickly direct from the US having ordered directly from UAG – I was very impressed that it got across the pond to my UK address in around 5 days!

The case itself looks really well built and certainly worth the approximately £25 it would cost here in the UK. My iPhone fits very snugly into the case and doesn’t move around at all.

(Screen protector is NOT included)

When you place the phone into the case, you immediately notice the thickness of the strong rubberised material around the phone. It certainly gives the impression that the case would withstand drops even on to nasty surfaces like stone.

With regards to the folio part of the case, it covers the front of the phone well and a fairly strong magnet keeps the case closed. For me, I perhaps would have liked to have seen the magnet slightly stronger – as when I drop tested the case myself from around 5 metres the case did open when dropped. A button popper might have been a slightly better choice in my view. Nonetheless, because of the thickness of the material surrounding the device, the device was well protected regardless of whether the case opened or not.

The folio cover also comes with a card slot which really impressed me. Many of my debit and credit cards are now contactless meaning I can make micro payments without needing to enter my PIN or insert my card into the reader. The design of this case made this feature so easy to use and meant I could leave a single card in the case just for contactless payments. The card is also easily removable if you need to use it for conventional transactions.

All ports are easily accessed (see the photos above) which is a vital plus point for me. I don’t think the case would fit very well into a dock connector, but that’s very commonly an issue with most cases.

Overall, I was very impressed with the case and certainly feel that its a strong, reliable case that gives a very high level of protection. If you work in the sort of environment where your phone is likely to get abused through drops and knocks, this is certainly a very good range of cases to consider.

Best Macbook Pro with Retina Display 13″ case – Clear mCover Hard Shell Case

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I’ve owned my 13″ Retina Macbook Pro for well over a year now and during that time I’ve tried many cases in an attempt to keep scratches and dirt off it. There’s no doubt that you can go to places like eBay and pick up a case for well under £10, but I’ve found most of them don’t work very well. They either fall apart after no time at all, or actually end up putting scratches on your device that weren’t there before it was fitted!

However, I did come across this case – the CLEAR mCover Hard Shell Case for 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. I’ve had it on my Macbook for around 3 months and I have to say it is without doubt the best case I’ve bought so far.

The case snugly fits on your Macbook and is almost completely see-through – so much so that many don’t even realise my Macbook has a case on it. The case is sturdy and will definitely be strong enough to protect your Macbook from a small drop or from being scratched.

The biggest selling point for the case by far and away, though, is the feet that are fitted to the bottom of it. They allow the back of the Macbook to be raised slightly, which makes it much more comfortable to type longer documents (particularly if you’re used to working on a desktop keyboard). It works seamlessly and is a very neat little design feature.

You can buy the case now from Amazon.

It’s also worth noting that they have Macbook Air 11 inch and 13 inch versions available too, as well as 13″ Macbook Pro (non-retina) solid colour variants.