Well I have just jumped on the BlackBerry band wagon in a possibly fruitless attempt to bring my mobile phone bills down in price. They have been sky-rocketing due to the amount of email I send and receive on the go. But to be honest I had pretty much destroyed my old phone in the space of 6 months, much the story with every phone I have owned.

So there were 2 main issues with my previous phones; durability and water resistance. Now water resistance was mainly due to me making a lot of calls while on my bike and with a cruddily sealed screen next to a sweaty oily ear and cheek you know what the outcome is going to be. I have decided the solve that problem with a BlueAnt Z9 bluetooth headset which will also keep 2 hands on the bar and get rid of sore necks from holding the phone with my shoulder. Now the durability issue was another thing…I don’t want to get boxed into buying some phone because its “durable” because they never have any features I need. That is when I stumbled across OtterBox Cases.

I purchased a OtterBox Defender series case for my BlackBerry 8310. It comes with an inner splash proof cover, a polycarbonate shell and a silicon rubber holder which absorbs shocks. I had a go at putting the thin, clear, splash and scratch proof membrane on. But I just couldn’t work all the air bubbles out of the screen and the feeling of the membrane over the keyboard wasn’t to my liking; so I binned it. Besides I have solved my water resistant issue by using a bluetooth headset and I don’t plan for it to get doused in water (Otterbox make some fully waterproof cases too though!).

The main reason I bought it was to basically ruggedise my phone. Now I can just chuck it around, just like it normally would but it won’t get dented or scratched. The silicon rubber holder absorbs shocks too so will make any larger than normal falls (which are regular) less of an issue. I have given it a few test throws and drops and very happy with how it works, rock solid, phone doesn’t blink an eye. It also comes with a magnetic belt clip holder which holds the phone extremely securely and has a rotatable clip so I can put it on my belt, bag or whatever takes my fancy.

You can get this particular case in 2 different colours for the polycarbonate, yellow or black. I chose yellow because it looks Tonka tough, plus it is company colours and it is easy to find if I can’t remember where the hell I put it.

I bought my case and headset at the same time to cut on shipping costs from CrackBerry.com but you can just buy the cases alone at OtterBox.com . They make a range of different cases offering varying ranges of protection for a larger amount of phones, PDAs, iPods etc. Check ‘em out!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 3:59 pm and is filed under XXIV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.