“OK, I’m off to go drop my phone. Wish me luck.”
Eyes squinting, I held my phone waist height over my rug and let go. A slight bounce, but nothing disconcerting. Feeling braver, I raised my arm to shoulder height, shifted to the hardwood area in the living room, and dropped my phone from there. I listened to the well-known clunk and watched it bounce. The tech21 Impact Clear phone case hit the floor on each side, almost mesmerizingly so. Slowly, hesitantly, holding my breath, I looked down at the screen of my phone. Not one crack in the tech21 Evo Glass screen shield. Whoa.
Last autumn, I decided to ditch the bulky extra battery case because I realized it was taking up a lot of butt-pocket room and decided to stop using it. However, I had put some really cool stickers on my phone and didn’t want to cover them up with some kind of fugly case. Besides, I thought to myself at the time, “What good is choosing a phone color if I cover the phone with some other kind of case?” Most of the cases I had easy access to covered up the stickers and the body of the phone in some kind of shiny plastic. Well, that was a bummer. Because, I really really like my stickers.
I am also uncoordinated. I am the person whose phone goes everywhere with her. You know the kind. The kind who goes to turn her phone to landscape and drops it. Just because the thinness is awkward. Simultaneously, the whole purpose of debatteryfying my phone was to make it more manageable and to actually incorporate the thinness of it into my life. If companies are going to work hard on these technologies, making it bulky again sort of defeats all their hard work.
Finally, I am extremely cost and value conscious. Because I have the aforementioned tendency to drop my phone on a regular basis, I also have a tendency to crack those little glass protective screens. Like, a lot. As in, I’m on my third in less than a year. Yes, really, I am. No. I’m not kidding.
Now – see this picture?
This is the phone shield I took off in order to replace it with my new tech21 impact protection shield. That was, mostly, cracking that came from my dropping aforementioned phone on aforementioned floor by aforementioned uncoordinated accident. This is why the “dropping on the hardwood floor test” was so important to me. I don’t do any hardcore exercise. I don’t do a whole lot of physical activity endangering my electronics. I’m just naturally klutzy with them. The tech21 screen shield did a great job protecting my screen while also not being a once-and-done product. If I had one complaint, it’s that there is very little room for human error when putting it on the phone which is a general complaint for these kinds of screen protectors anyway. I followed the directions (and even used the handy little clear tape trick). However, a piece of dust got under it during application which led to my peeling it off and putting it back on, which, of course, led to the bottom corner not being applied 100%. In the end, that probably only bothers people like me who have to have things totally perfect or else they get itchy.
The tech21 clear case and screen shield work as a really great pairing for me. In a nutshell, the case and screen protector managed to keep my phone slim, show off my phone, and protect my screen all in one. After two weeks of hard use, and two decent purposeful drops, everything is not only still intact but no cracks seemed to happen to the screen shield. In fact, the reason that I had to purposefully drop the phone is because the new case has a good grip on it. Instead of being slimy, shiny like some of the cases out there, it has a matte finish that makes it fairly non-slip. As far as being slender, I really love that it takes up no more space than one of those other “just barely there” covers. However, reading about its drop safety bulletproof glass-like technology means that it’s not just thin but also fairly protective. As the person who spent her kid’s first four years covering her smartphone in various kinds of damage proof casing, the tech21 gives a really great sense of liberation combined with the peace of mind that comes with knowing your $800 piece of hand held technology isn’t going to shatter into a trillion pieces because of your rough daily life (or that of your little tiny destructive human).
Disclaimer: Samples supplied for review, but the opinions contained within are my own.
