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e13ctron aluminum case Full Review
- Thread starter chris975d
- Start date
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Moar pics! 
By now, all of you should know which color is which finish, so I'm not going to rehash it.
(You can click on any of these to see the full-size photo)
Black Chrome:
Black back plastic hybrid piece:
Blue front:
Gold front:
By now, all of you should know which color is which finish, so I'm not going to rehash it.
(You can click on any of these to see the full-size photo)
Black Chrome:
Black back plastic hybrid piece:
Blue front:
Gold front:
I'm getting better! Heck, I should be...I've been practicing all day the past few days! We've been snowed in, and there's not much else to do!
And I still like the gold as well, as it's the color of my school (Georgia Tech...see my avatar). But my favorite texture is still the matte. I'd try the gold in matte, but I'm not sure how that'd look. I think the original finish might still be the best for the gold. I also wouldn't mind having a dark grey/gunmetal in the matte finish...I think that'd look great as well.
I would say the original also. The matte would still be OK, but the texture is a bit rougher than the finish on the iPhone's antenna band. The original is going to be a very, very close match as far as finish is concerned.
thanks for the reply. the light grey front with original finish and the black plastic bottom might look pretty damn good on the phone, and with a white glass back. i thought about putting on the white back but id rather not deal with having to clean it all the time. after my white bumpers getting dirty within a few days, i dont think ill ever buy any white cases again.
It's not available for sale just yet. They will have it on the store site in a couple of weeks.
I have some Monster Solo HDs with the right angle plug and there is no issue with them at all with this case.
Don't get the Blade Case!
As far as design and quality are concerned, the Blade case is phenomenal... That's where the praise ends. The signal degradation is HUGE. I average about 4 (-87db) bars in my city (Burlington, ON Canada). Immediately after installing the case, the signal dropped to "no signal". I also took my phone with me to an area where I get very strong signal, upwards of -70db. I was able to get a very shaky 2 bars, the second bar pretty much just flickered on and off. My experience with wifi, 3g and GPS were identical, 3ft from the router and I have 2 bars, GPS takes about 3 minutes to lock on. I am in the process of filing an eBay complaint against the manufacturer. I have sent out a request for a refund, and he has not responded in over two weeks. I WOULD have been within the 3 day allotted return period if he had responded within a day or two.
As far as design and quality are concerned, the Blade case is phenomenal... That's where the praise ends. The signal degradation is HUGE. I average about 4 (-87db) bars in my city (Burlington, ON Canada). Immediately after installing the case, the signal dropped to "no signal". I also took my phone with me to an area where I get very strong signal, upwards of -70db. I was able to get a very shaky 2 bars, the second bar pretty much just flickered on and off. My experience with wifi, 3g and GPS were identical, 3ft from the router and I have 2 bars, GPS takes about 3 minutes to lock on. I am in the process of filing an eBay complaint against the manufacturer. I have sent out a request for a refund, and he has not responded in over two weeks. I WOULD have been within the 3 day allotted return period if he had responded within a day or two.
he doesn't reply anymore, i don't know why. he use to reply very quick. but once the payment is done, no more replies. i'm lucky because the item came in fast and i have no signal issues or whatsoever. but i hardly use it, i prefer the design and feel of e13ctron. that's why i have 4 tops and will be ordering again when the chrome hybrid will come out.
I got my matte black and clear aluminum. I like this a lot better then the Atomic hybrid. As far as reception, no different for me then the Atomic was. The company is really good to deal with too.
The Atomic hybrid I ordered for comparison purposes (reception-wise, fit/finish, etc) came in earlier today. Give me a day or so to test it out fully, and I'll post my complete findings and thoughts it compared to the e13ctron hybrid. Initially, I can tell you that they are both virtually identical as far as reception goes (both are within 1 dB of each other everywhere I've been so far), and it's pretty widely recognized that the Atomic hybrid has been the best performing aluminum/hybrid case on the market thus far (as far as wireless reception is concerned). So for those of you possibly considering the Atomic hybrid because of it's lack of reception interference, the e13ctron hybrid is going to give you another option. One thing that I am noticing with the Atomic hybrid so far is that the signal has sporadic negative dips. Not predictable, and not for more than a few seconds, but it will occasionally take a hard dive in reception. So far the biggest dip I've seen it have has been from -83dB down to -99dB, sitting still in an area that is always -80dB to -82dB without a case. Now that may have something to do with AT&T possibly working on a tower in the area, or could be weather related (we've had some harsh weather locally lately), but I've never noticed a dip like that with the e13ctron before, even today, and it was installed on my phone right up until I changed out and installed the Atomic. But I'll give that another day or so to see if it continues.
I think we really know which way this comparison is going to be in favor of. Its too obvious.
Not really going to be "in favor" of one or the other. As I said, at least initially, they seem to be virtually identical in performance. Unless I see the signal dipping thing occur over the entire length of the weekend, I'm chalking that up to weather conditions/ice/snow that we've been having. I've seen my iPad 3G doing some weird stuff this week as well, like data cutting out. The main reason for me even purchasing a used Atomic was so that we could get a comparsion of the e13ctron against a known good reception case made of similar materials, since not everyone has the ability to purchase every case on the market and try them out (I'm one of the few stupid enough to do it!
). Unless I get totally shocked over this weekend, which I doubt I will, I'm going with my initial gut reaction...that we are going to have two different hybrid cases that perform equally well, and now the customers have a choice of styles to choose from for a great performing hybrid case.