Over the years with my iPhone, I’ve spent nearly £200 on various cases and forms of protection for it. Now although I’m careful with my toys, accidents do happen, things knock into your pockets and things slip out of your hand, and whilst I’m lucky enough that I can say I’ve only dropped my iPhone once, I cant say much about things knocking into my pockets. Considering I work in IT and have to perform manoeuvres that would make even the most seasoned yoga instructor cringe simply to plug in a LAN cable and it’s easy to see where my iPhone might take a fair bit of abuse.

Yet like most people, I hate the iPhone being in a case. It’s sleek and fits perfectly in your hand so why would you want to shove it in a case that makes it bigger?

With the exception of screen protectors my iPhone has always been in some form of case, and I’ve never been disappointed, but most if not all of them have suffered from the same set of problems.

They make the iPhone bigger and thus it does not fit in your pocket properly
Dust and specs get caught in them and end up scratching the hell out of the chrome bezel
They usually result in scratches on the back of the phone no matter what you do

The very first case I had was an incase rubber ‘skin’ over the back. Not only was this a poor fit (although some peoples fitted beautifully!) mine was loose, and inevitably caused scratches in the usual places, not to mention pealing and picking up some strange colours along the way, I did eventually buy a second one of these, but again it was far too big, and stretched easily. Colleagues who had the same case loved it, theirs fitted perfectly in a way that made them “almost too small” for the iPhone, so perhaps I was getting a bad batch. On the plus side it was light, thin and didn’t look that bad.

Another case I got was a Belkin slip in style cover. Not only did this make the phone more bulky in depth, it also made it wider and taller no thanks to the velcro strap on the top. Poor construction was to blame here, the faux leather plastic pealed off around the corners, and it soon became apparent that this case offered almost no protection whatsoever for the iPhone. It wasn’t cheap either but it’s safe to say that this case is better left to a phone that resides in someones briefcase or on their desk and not their pockets.

After these two I became distended, trying out slip cases for the iphone instead of an actual case. Some were eBay knockoffs, some of them were big name brands. Almost always the cheap eBay knockoffs fitted better and had better protective linings, although they discoloured easily and made it inevitable that you would pull out your iPhone and have it drop out of your hand as had happened to me.

So we get on to possibly my second favourite case. An incase slider. A clever little design that gave your iPhone a hard case, with a slide out piece for the bottom so it would fit into a dock. Alas this really did make the phone much bulkier and uncomfortable to type on. Poor injection moulding meant that my phone got a lovely groove ‘sliced’ into it on the back  and saw me taking wet & dry sandpaper to the inside of the case to try and remove the overspill from the moulding process.

Despite this, the case was tough and offered substantial protection for the phone. Although the sliding mechanism managed to cause more scratches in the back and even worse on the bezel!

So that brings me on the my best ever case. The one. The single case that has afforded me the most protection and on a bigger plus point, cost me 99p. An iPhone eBay knockoff case that has stood the test of time. It’s clear, and it’s strong, yet flexible. Enter the iPhone shell.

The photo you see is the actual case that is on my iPhone. What you can also see is a fair few scratches and knocks but no cracks, no splits and just how thin it is. A mere 2mm thick, and just about perfect. It’s also flexible so that it can absorb a certain amount of punishment, but this clips onto the phone snugly, preserves the colour and feel of the device and has left the back of my phone completely unmarked. The chrome bezel has suffered a little scratching but after months of use it’s clear that this is drastically reduced in comparison to some of the other cases.

Known as the air jacket, here’s a link to one for just £1 on the UK eBay store http://bit.ly/amHTQK

So there you have it. The cheapest case seems to be the best. Now I wonder if there will be anything like it for the iPhone 4?