Case-Mate Barely There iPhone 5 Case

Most people will think you’re a mad man to own an iPhone 5 and not have a case! The same goes for most smartphones these days and it makes perfect sense – most people would want to keep expensive purchases like that in good condition. There are no shortages when it comes to finding a case fortunately.

The Case-Mate Barely There, as you can probably gather by the name, is a case that aims not to be so noticeable when put it on your iPhone 5. Let’s talk about the design first. The case is on the thin side, but not super thin to not be noticeable at all. There’s a bit of weight to it and it does add a slight bit of bulk to your iPhone. The back is a plain soft rubber type surface – I was expecting there to be a pattern considering there’s strangely one on the inside of the case. This seems to be a waste since you’ll only ever see it when you take your iPhone out of the case.

There are cut outs for the volume and mute buttons on the side as well as the camera on the back. I’m not sure if Case-Mate were originally trying to make a universal case as the camera slot on the back is a bit too big. I prefer to have snug cases without unnecessary gaps.

When the case is fitted onto your iPhone, the sides next to the screen stick out a bit. This means the screen itself will not come into contact with a flat surface should you place it face down. However, this also makes it quite noticeable and gives the screen a sunken feel in the case whenever your finger gets close to the edge.

The case has a solid feel to it and would probably provide adequate protection if you were to drop your iPhone – not that I tried it! The pictures show a grey version of the case with a blue interior pattern, however I tried out a fully black version of the case with the interior also being black. There are so many iPhone 5 cases out there that it’s difficult to make one stand out. I don’t feel the Case-Mate Barely There does anything special except feeling nice in the hand. However, if that’s all you want, then look no further. Either way, it’s well worth investing in an iPhone 5 case!

STM Small Jacket 13″ Laptop Case

Buying a laptop case is always an important choice, especially with so many available now. Most of the time, it comes down to your requirements – whether you want to be not only carry your laptop but also all your various accessories. On the flip side, there is something to be said about travelling light.

The STM Small Jacket is a case for 13″ laptops. First off, if you’re someone who wants to carry everything, then you can pretty much forget about doing so with this case. In fact, you can’t really fit a charger in this case either! It seems this case is very much intended for those short journeys where you won’t need a charger and only want to carry your laptop, along with maybe a couple of sheets of paper. You may be able to squeeze a charger into the front section, however I think this bag was designed with US two pin adapters in mind, as those are significantly thinner than its UK chunky three pin cousin. There’s no way you’ll be fitting a UK plug in there!

The bag itself is pretty trendy. It has a clean look & feel and the orange really makes a good contrast to the primary brown colour. The interior is all orange too and softly padded for your laptop to easily slide into.

The front contains a small pocket, presumably to slide your phone in and out of. This doesn’t have any zip or velcro strap to close, so it’s a free access pocket. There’s then a zipped slot immediately beneath that, where you can keep larger items. On the back of the case is a velcro supported slot where you can keep A4 pieces of papers or other thin items.

On the whole, the STM Small Jacket 13″ case is a nice minimalistic case to simply carry your 13″ MacBook, or other laptop. It’s not heavily padded however, so don’t expect it to give much protection should you drop it. However, it’s nice to carry and looks trendy too. Either way, it’s highly recommend to have a good case for your MacBook!

Tuff-Luv 2.5″ Portable Hard Drive Case

Some may feel that portable hard drives are being phased out thanks to cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. However, the truth is that portable hard drives remain an extremely convenient method of transferring large chunks of data. If, like me, you use a portable hard drive regularly then you’ll definitely want to have a good case to protect it from knocks and general wear & tear.

I got my hands on the Tuff-Luv 2.5″ Hard Drive Case and have been extremely pleased with it. The outer shell of the case is solid, meaning that if you drop it then your drive won’t be affected. Of course, if you’re carrying a hard drive with a spinning disc then that can still be affected by the drop although the chassis or hard drive itself won’t be damaged.

The case has a smooth finish to it and opens up, as shown in the second picture, on the side. The amount that the case opens up is limited due to restraining flaps on either side internally. I found that the case feels like it should really open about half an inch more for ease of access, however it wasn’t a major issue as I could still access the drive and cable.

There’s ample space for you to slide your 2.5″ hard drive in, with a small strap fitted in to hold your drive in place. You can then put the cable in freely next to it. I was expecting there to be a built-in pouch inside for the cable to slot into but unfortunately there wasn’t. This means there’s always the potential that the cable, typically USB, may scratch against your drive chassis depending on how large the chassis is and the material.

On the whole however, I found this to be an excellent case for my needs. I’m able to take my hard drive around with comfort and not have to worry about any potential damage to it. For the Tuff-Luv case as well as other cases, check out hard drive cases for sale by LoveCases.

Apple laptops built like Mercedes cars

I’ve been using Apple products for quite a while, in fact almost 10 years. I first started off with an iBook G4, before upgrading to a MacBook which lasted me my university years and even after. I decided for a change and went for an early 2008 MacBook Pro 15″, pre-unibody. Why? Well, MacBooks are effectively built like Mercedes cars, they’re solid through and through and will last the years!

Just to give an idea of how solid Apple’s laptops have been for me, my iBook from around 10 years ago still works perfectly fine. Besides speed, it boots up fine, runs applications (old versions albeit) fine, and even looks fine. Next up was my MacBook, the first white MacBooks that Apple released. My MacBook lasted 4-5 years and again, worked fine in all departments. The speed itself was also fine, I couldn’t fault it at all. The only reason for even selling that laptop was because I was bored and mainly wanted a laptop with a bigger screen.

When it came to deciding what laptop to get, I knew I was sticking to Apple. My Apple laptop is my main machine, I have a Time Machine backup of it and use it for all professional related tasks. Video gaming is not really an option. After researching, I decided upon the early 2008 MacBook Pro for a few reasons. Firstly, I actually liked the design and look of it. It has a classic mechanistic look about it, much like the iPhone 4 when it was first revealed. Secondly, the price was reasonable, there are plenty on eBay. And thirdly, it fit my requirements – it was a Mac, speed was decent especially for work related tasks, decent sized screen and even a backlit keyboard.

This was about a year ago, and my MacBook Pro is working a charm. It’s a shame that most laptops aren’t built with the same stability as Apple’s. When I walk into PC World, I always have a feel for the laptops and am disappointed to find cheap plastic chassises with creaky buttons that feel you can pop them out with ease. Apple on the other hand definitely build their laptops like Mercedes!

On the off chance you need a MacBook case, which is well worth it if you travel about, then definitely look no further than GearZap, specifically at the Speck cases that they have.