SigSays - All Things Reviewed

Just a teaser for now, still at work. As soon as I get home and all, I’ll do some gameplay videos and upload them. Here’s a screen.

Needless to say, my productivity today is not so great.

After living with both the Capsule Neo and Capsule Rebel for a month or more each, I can say with authority that I favor the Rebel.

The Neo, while cool, is a pain in the ass to install. It’s not THAT hard, but it’s certainly less than ideal. More importantly, it adds a lot of bulk to the phone. Oddly, the dimensions listed show the Neo as being smaller, but in my experience, it’s much larger. It might be a typo, or it could just be the shape. Either way, it certainly feels big.

The Rebel, on the other hand, is cheaper, feels smaller in the hand, and is easier to install.

My vote goes to the Rebel.

Rebel

Neo

This will be a pretty short review, as nearly everything I said about the Switcheasy Rebel applies, so there’s no point in rehashing.

The Switcheasy Neo is the newest design from Switcheasy. It comes with 3 parts, as opposed to two, like the Rebel, but otherwise is pretty similar. I like the design more, as it’s a bit classier, a little less highschool. Protection factor seems to be about the same, that is to say it’s excellent.

Installation was kind of a pain, it kept pulling the thin rubber diaphragm over onto the screen. It wasnt horrible, but certainly tool some work, where the Rebel damn near installs itself.

I prefer the Neo, I believe, but I’m glad I have both.

Pics:

Rating:

I recently picked up an iPhone 3G (Review coming next, I wanted to review the phone and case seperately), and being horribly abusive on phones, I decided I needed a case for it ASAP.  After doing some research, I decided on the SwitchEasy Rebel. It seemed to offer the best compromise of protection and ease of use.

I didn’t bother documenting the install, because it’s mindlessly simple, and there are a million writeups and youtube vids on it anyway. I also didn’t clean the phone or case first, as I wanted to show that it does attract a little dust on the soft parts. However, you’ll notice it looks a lot cleaner in the first pic. This is because the others were taken close up in Macro mode. It’s really not noticeably dirty, but macro mode + flash will make anything look dusty.

The Rebel comes with three different parts, a soft rubber case, a hard plastic “spine” that goes over it, and a clear screen protector. You basically stick the screen protector on, slide the phone in the rubber case, then pop the spine on the back. Installation took a few seconds at most.

Fit is basically flawless, there’s a very minor gap in one corner on mine, but it’s not a surgical instrument, there has to be a slight bit of tolerance. The gap isn’t anything you would notice, so little I couldn’t really get it in a pic, I just felt I’d mention it, since some people are anal. If you’re a normal human being, you’ll be very impressed with the fit.

The rubber part of the case covers all the buttons on the phone except the silent “Switch”. I haven’t noticed any degradation in operating the buttons, and keeping them protected will definitely increase the life of the phone.

Same goes for the power button

The bottom includes a rubber plug to protect the charge/sync connector, while leaving the speakers for speakerphone exposed.

The spine part seems to pick up scratches very easily. I’m hard on phones in general, but they usually get chipped from being dropped, not scratched up. I always stick my phone in my back pocket, alone, so it’s not bouncing around with my keys. For a comparison, I had my Treo 750 for over a year. I’ve had the switcheasy case for the iphone for about 10 days.

Not a huge deal, and it’s just a case anyway, the idea is to scratch it, and not the phone, but it would be cool if they could alter the material of the spine to keep it from getting to scratched so quickly.

While all cases are going to add some size, this one is pretty good at keeping it to a minimum. You can see it’s still much thinner than the Treo.

Overall, I’m very happy with it, I would, and actually might, buy another.

Pros: Unique design, very easy installation, good fit and finish, comprehensive protection.

Cons: Scratches easily, power port plug is kind of a pain in the ass, they need to find a way to attach it to the case, I know I’m gonna lose it, it’s just a matter of when.

Sig Says: Buy it!

Rating:

I finally bit the bullet and picked up an iPhone. I’ve used Windows Mobile for years, but I got sick of waiting for them to get their act together.

Of course, the first order of business was to jailbreak, which I’m neither patient nor well enough informed to cover here, so I’ll just link you to QuickPwn, and suffice to say you certainly want to do it.

I also installed a case, a SwitchEasy Rebel, which I covered in a review below.

Here’s the JesusPhone in all it’s glory.

One of the coolest features, at least for me, is the built in screenshot app. Hold the top button and press the home key and you get a screenshot.

Here’s the lock screen while charging.

And here’s my home screen, after lots of modification.

Having owned tons of Windows Mobile phones, I can’t help but compare the two. The iphone’s wifi implementation is MUCH better. Once a network is saved, if wifi is on, it automatically connects. Once the network is no longer available, it automatically goes back to cellular data. Windows Mobile’s implementation was so clunky, I never really bothered to use it much.

The amount of apps is astounding, especially once you’re free of using only apple approved apps. Here’s what I have so far, not including utilities and such, which are in other folders.

The WordPress blog is especially cool. You can save your blog address, login, and password, and post, edit, upload pics, manage, etc from anywhere. Here’s the start screen:

And here’s the management screen for this blog:

The “New Post” screen

You can see there’s a button to add pics too. I was walking to pick up lunch the other day from a Chinese place near my apartment. I snapped the pics, uploaded them, and composed and published THIS POST, all from my phone. Pretty cool stuff.

The browser is, in my opinion, one of the biggest advantages to the iPhone over pretty much every thing else. He’s a few screenshots of this blog in varying levels of zoom and in both landscape and portrait.

There are a few faults though. The lack of MMS messaging is absolutely baffling, same with no video capture for the camera. The only thing that really annoys me is the lack of widescreen mode keyboard in messaging and email. It works in safari:

But in the messaging apps, you’re stuck with the portrait mode keyboard:

I don’t understand the logic of leaving this out, it’s a widespread complaint, and it would be super easy to remedy.

Overall, I’m very happy with the phone. It’s easily the best smartphone I’ve had, and it keeps getting better with new apps coming out every day, and new updates bringing additional features to the table.

Sig Says: If you aren’t a heavy, HEAVY email user, ie, blackberry addict, I don’t think you can go wrong with the iphone.

Rating:

So yeah, expect lots of posts about iphone stuff. Also, I just ordered the Switcheasy Rebel case. I’ll do a full review of both the phone and the case when they arrive.