Pros: A high-end leather case available in forty color choices. Easy to use, good-looking, durable metal hook that is large enough to clip to belts, bags and purses. Provides full front protection for the nano’s face, Click Wheel and screen.
Cons: Extremely soft leather that shows minor scratches and indentations. Limited to no protection for the nano’s top, bottom, corners and backside. Price tag is relatively high in comparison with other nano cases that offer more protection.
Described as a part of Vaja’s i-Volution line, i-Volution with Hook is half the case it used to be. Similar to Vaja’s past Classic case for the first-generation iPod nano, which featured a sturdy metal hook and enough leather to wrap around the nano’s body, i-Volution with Hook contours the leather to the nano’s front and sides, but drops almost all back coverage in the process.
You can choose from one of 40 different leather colors for the base price; no optional add-ons are available. Each comes with a clear iPod nano face protector, and a clear iPod nano screen protector as an alternative if you don’t want Click Wheel coverage. The soft leather inside is easy to slightly tear during initial insertion of the nano.
Picture a women wearing a backless gown. While modest front fabric ensures that her essentials are covered, the lure of a backless gown is to daringly leave the backside completely exposed. Vaja’s new i-Volution with Hook ($45) is the backless gown of luxury leather cases, keeping an iPod nano’s front essentials—the screen and Click Wheel–-covered, while daringly leaving the nano’s backside completely exposed.
The backless design is a new innovation for the i-Volution family. Not fully classifiable as a case, although marketed as one, the i-Volution is made of beautiful, high-class, and soft Catarina leather, wrapped without padding around a hard shell.
This is the single biggest selling point of the design, and augmented by a hook-–a thick, polished metal clip—permanently attached at the base for easy on-the-go storage. While available in 40 unique color choices, which can be previewed on Vaja’s web site, it is worth noting that the actual case we received for testing was a brighter color of orange than what was depicted. This wasn’t a bad thing, but worth noting anyway.
As previously mentioned, the i-Volution is a backless case, but in addition to providing no backside protection, the i-Volution also lacks protection for the nano’s Hold switch, Dock Connector, headphone port, and four corners, something consumers will need to take into consideration before making a purchase. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that the face of the nano is well protected. A choice of two removable film inserts—one for the screen alone, one for the screen and Click Wheel—provides a protective barrier for these openings while thicker leather covers the nano’s face and sides.
While the bottom Dock Connector and headphone port were left uncovered by the i-Volution, we found that the built-in clip actually prevents the nano from docking with speaker systems and the iPod Dock. Users will have to remove the nano from the i-Volution altogether to be able to use those external devices.
