iPod Frog Skinz
If the supplied Apple iPod slip case left you a little disappointed (like me) you’ve probably been on the look out for a proper case to protect your iPod from the outside world. iFrogz offer a solution for people looking for rugged protection.
My iPod Video obtained its first scratches on the polished black front within days – so it’s not just the iPod Nano which suffers.
It’s a bit late to save mine now – but I wish i’d heard of these rubber skinz earlier!
The iFrogz range provides the whole iPod family with some good solid protection in the form of polished silicone “wrapz”. They claim the 100% silicone material is stronger and lasts longer than any other iPod covers.
They’ve thought about the dust and lint attraction that silicone has, and covered the case with an anti-static treatment. However, after a day of use my wrapz has attracted a fair bit of fluff and mess. Washging the wrapz under the tap and rubbing it gets the build up of dust off though. The wrapz have a great feel in the hand!
The iFrog product comes in three parts – you don’t have to purchase it as a complete set.
Screenz offers a protective thick sticky-back screen.
The package contains a nifty little cleaning cloth for polishing up your iPod, a protective scratch sheet and a designer wheel cover sticker.
It was simple and clean to apply the protective sheet my screen, using the supplied “soft card” (which is basically a small piece of cardboard!) to push out any air bubbles.
I did have trouble with the trapped air bubbles around the click-wheel (see photo to the right). This might be why the wheel cover stickers are provided.
You get a pretty wide choice of image designs to have on your wheel – you can be as over the top and loud, or simple and sophisticated as you wish. The wheel sticker attaches to the protective sheet.
Wrapz are the silicone covers. They give the iPod a slight chunky but robust feeling – and makes me feel a lot more confident about chucking my iPod in my bag.
The wrapz feature cut outs for the click wheel, screen, key-lock slider, headphone jack and the dock/sync slot on the bottom.
The back of the wrapz features a molded iFrogz branding logo together with two rows of notches to aid non-slipping of your iPod on surfaces.
There back also features a screw hole to attach the supplied clip, which may be of interest to people involved in sport/training.
Bandz. The wrapz are complemented with a rubber band (available separate) which wraps around the edge of your iPod to protect the various cut outs for connections etc. The only hole left open is for your headphones. (This is the silver band shown in the photo to the right).
Verdict
There’s not much to say about the screen protector – it’s a good quality looking thick cover that does the job. I felt the “designer” wheel cover sticker degraded the overall quality of the product , although after seeing it surrounded by the wrap i’m getting used to it.
The chosen silver bandz seemed a little scruffy with my wrapz and have opted to leave the bandz off. However when designing your case you might find a better colour.
The wrapz case is an excellent quality product that looks and feels good, fusing style and protection. Nice! I don’t think it will let your iPod look as slick as it does when its left bare naked, but to prolong its life in an active real-world environment the wrapz do the job.
It’s worth noting that the wrapz case did obstruct the connecting of my PocketDock module to the iPod’s dock port. The original Apple cable fits okay though.
As with mobile phones and the many, many, many, snap-on covers which appeared over the years, I think the customization of wheel stickers for the iFrogz is a move that will appeal to the teenage market, especially females. I kept my choice a little more conservative!
We reviewed the Gun Metal wrapz with silver bandz and a 3D Silver Fox wheel cover. You can mix and match your own design now on the iFrogz case designer site.
Cases (including bandz and screenz) are priced at $31 (about £17.50), however iFrogz have an introductory promotion of just $24 (about £13.50) right now!
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these suck
Fortunately I have seen such covers already when I bought iPod Video. I have similar type of shield on my mobile as well. Although they don’t belong to the company you have mentioned but they did the job.