Traditionally, cases for mobile devices were made out of either aluminium(metal case) or leather. Recently, silicone and PVC(crystal) cases became more popular and eroded the market share of full-metal cases – can Brando’s latest offering for the Nokia N82 stack up?
Like all other Brando products, our sample shipped in a envelope from Hong Kong. The case itself is packed in a blister for extra protection:
Crystal cases always consist of two parts – installing them follows an ageold convention. First, slide the back part onto the phone. After that, snap the front piece onto the back as shown in the image below:
Brando’s case completely covers the phone’s screen – there is no need for a dedicated screen protector here. The camera and the keys got cutouts – unfortunately, the cutouts for the keyboard are a bit too tight and make hitting the top keys of the keypad a bit difficult:
Cutouts at the back allow the camera to operate normally:
The various buttons and ports at the side all got cutouts – unfortunately, the cutout for the memory card slot is in the wrong place – swapping out your memory card requires you to remove the phone from the case:
An extra cutout is provided for the headphone jack and the power button:
Finally, here’s a shot of the phone in its case:
In the end, Brando’s Crystal Case for Nokia N82 is a great protection from accidental scratching. Even though typing is made unnecessarily difficult due to the case’s somewhat tight keyboard cutouts, the phone remains perfectly usable while in the case(except for an occasional memory card swap). The price of just 8$ makes this an absolute must-have case for everybody who likes Crystal Cases – a review of a leather case(costing approx 5x as much) is coming soon!
