Arctic iPhone 4 Hard Case Review

In this day and age, the majority of consumers have a smart phone of some shape or form. Whether it be the latest Android based phone, iOS device or even a Windows 7 smartphone. iOS devices such as the iPhone 3GS, 4 and now the latest 4S are some of the most expensive pieces of kit on the market, so as you can appreciate, protecting it in some way or another is a vital necessity.

Sure you can get insurance, but this generally involves a monthly fee and hefty excess when you make a claim. Instead of this, the other avenues that you can take is to protect it the best way you can by use of a screen protector and/or case.

When I purchased my iPhone 4, the first thing I did to it, once it had been taken out of the box, was to put a screen protector on and a case, and to this date, it still looks 100% brand new. The problem with a case is the many different types and designs. Do you choose one with a pretty pattern or do you go for plain? What about the material used? Do you go for a soft rubber-like case or a robust hard case? So many questions, and of course this is all going to come down to personal preference.

What we have today is the iPhone 4 hard case from Arctic, who believe they have something to offer in this tough market, and can give you the right protection when needed for your iPhone 4 in the form of a hard case.

The packaging is sleek and simple with a view of the case and features listed down one side. It also makes it clear that it’s compatible with the white iPhone 4, which is slightly thicker than the black variant. The packaging is the perfect example of what you’d see hanging in a phone shop, and I should know, I used to run one.

When you look at things a bit closer, the inside looks as though it’s made from tin, though it’s not and is actually a glossy-type material to comfortably sit against your iPhone 4. We can see all of the relevant spaces for the iPhone buttons and ports.

The material used on the outside of the case has an anti-slip coating which prevents accidental damage. When feeling the case, you can feel a slight rubberised texture to it, but feels comfortable to touch none the less.The case is made with a precision fit for iPhone 4 devices. The bottom of the case is cut out so that your speakers and dock connector port are freely accessible, whereas other cases on the market make this much more difficult than it has to be.

We can see the precision fit in action here, with space for the power button and 3.5mm audio jack port.

Even though the white iPhone 4 is 0.2mm thicker, the hard case from Arctic can still accommodate, whereas other cheaper ones found on the market and boot fairs don’t always line up properly.

Even the camera has room to breathe, and it’s added flash/light too, it just all seems to fit flawlessly, whereas other cases on the market sometimes have some slight design issues, we’ve yet to find one with this case and it has to be said for the build quality being second to none.

Whilst it is a thin material, it doesn’t feel flimsy and snugly fits over the iPhone and is actually quite difficult to remove once installed. Some may see this as a bad thing, but I’d rather have it difficult to remove than having it fall off at every opportunity.

This is an extremely tough market to crack, as with all mobile phone accessories but iPhone and Apple products are probably the most challenging.

This is because there are so many different types and styles of iPhone cases in the market, but each person has their own unique preference to how they want theirs to be including style, design and material used.

Personally, I was using a standard grey rubber soft case, but after getting familiar with how this hard case feels, it’s not replaced the soft case I had and will continue to stay where it is for the foreseeable future.

The design is flawless, as stated, I’ve seen similar products where certain aspects don’t line up correctly or are the wrong shape or size for the camera, whereas what we have here is perfect in terms of the size and shape of all the cut-outs including the volume, power button and camera.

Priced at $11.95 or €9.01 from Arctic directly, it’s certainly competative in terms of value for money, with some other rival cases being sold for at least double that but not having half of the build quality that we saw from this.

This goes to show that it really can be done cheaply whilst keeping the quality to a high level too, with things like an anti-slip coating and double-sided colour whereas some more expensive, mass-produced clones end up peeling, flaking and leaving you a bit disappointed to say the least.

It’s little things that give that extra to a product and one of the main ones is of course the build quality, couple all of that with the design, a good brand and if it’s priced well too, and if all boxes are ticked, then we can see it selling, and selling well too.