As of today, the iPhone 3G doesn’t have a hard plastic case that we love; we’ve liked Contour’s iSee and Hardskin, as well as Griffin’s Wave, but the right combination of looks, pricing, and protection hasn’t yet emerged. The same holds true today as we review three new plastic iPhone shells from Case-Mate, Speck, and Uniea. This review covers Case-Mate’s Naked Case for iPhone 3G ($35).
Based heavily on last year’s Naked Case, which was in turn based on Artwizz’s widely licensed SeeJacket Crystal, the Naked Case for iPhone 3G is a clear hard plastic shell with integrated thin plastic touchscreen protection.
The hook here is that the case requires no separate screen film in order to cover the touchscreen; you just snap the two-piece case together, and most of the iPhone is covered.
Case-Mate’s major advantage over some competitors is its array of colors: you can choose from clear, black, white, pink, or gray versions, each with the same completely clear face and black front bezel. Each of these cases is decidedly classier than Uniea’s U-Feel, which uses similar integrated touchscreen protection, but comes in three offbeat metallic or pearlescent colors. But there’s a surprising disadvantage, as well: this year’s Naked Case is just too wide and tall.
Try to use it with any Universal Dock accessory or thick Dock Connector plug and you’ll be out of luck; similarly, the case’s headphone port opening is molded in a way that precludes use with the largest headphone plugs we tested. Apple’s and most third-party plugs will work, but thicker ones may have an issue. The iPhone 3G’s camera, side, top, and Home buttons are all exposed, as well.
How well does the integrated touchscreen cover work? Most of the time, we had no issue using the iPhone 3G’s screen controls with typical touch actions, but we did find that the protector diminished the multi-touch sensitivity just enough to make casual side-of-finger pinch gestures unreliable; you have to make sure there’s enough finger surface area there to activate the screen.
