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e13ctron case - minireview

Here are some more, taken with another mobile device.
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I think it looks great. Both sides seem to line up perfectly, very well cut. Pretty good lucking case in my opinion. Seems very well made and thought out. Thanks for the pictures.
 
Thanks for the photos, looks like a nice case. I still want to know more about it and how the reception is before I purchase.
 
looks nice, but for a metal case the lack of some kind of button machined into the the case seems like lazy design IMO
 
Holy huge images! batman.

The case is nice. This sounds like one of those that will go down as "its not perfect but it surely works while looking nice" cases.
Hmmmmm....
 
bighabeeb said:
Received it this evening - will be doing a vid review over the weekend and taking some pics etc. Got a silver/orange and just wanted to give some first impressions.

In terms of quality, it seems very nice. The case itself is two aluminum halves that get a plastic lining into each and then sandwich together over the phone (so yes, the case is 4 pieces). The case is then held together by 6 allen screws - one in each corner, and one in the middle of each long side. Cut outs are in place for the dock connector, speakers, headphone, power button, volume, and silent switches. On the side with the volume cute outs is the e13ctron S4 logo, milled into the metal - it appears that this bit was left raw so it stands out with a nice silver color.

The case itself is actually quite nice looking. I was a bit concerned about the case when I saw the instructions - it's a full page, however it's a full page with pictures and is actually much simpler then it first looked. If I have one complaint about the installation, it's that the heads of the allen screws are very, VERY shallow: the allen wrench doesn't have much room to get in there, so you really need to lay the phone on a flat surface. It's not hard by any means, but I certainly wouldn't see myself taking the case off and on repeatedly - it took about 3 or 4 minutes of fiddling to get the first screw in, the rest went much more easily. It's certainly not as "user friendly" as the alumacase/atomic/element cases when it comes to installation.

The power button, along with the volume and silent switches are all accessible, though I admit having an external button, at least for the power/sleep button, would be nice - the flush feel found on those other aluminum cases is something that I value rather highly since it's a button I use constantly. Again, not a deal breaker, just a thing that would have been nice to have.

The case does give the phone a very solid feel without adding too terribly much to the bulk of it. I would say its a bit slimmer than the alumacase, though it doesn't seem dissimilar in terms of size.

As far as reception goes, and I want to point out this is based STRICTLY on how things looked: speedtest, fieldtest etc have not been used yet...however I did see my bars go from 3 - 4 down to 2 - 3...potentially of more concern, when on wifi my signal dropped a bar from full, even when sitting only a dozen or so feet from my router. As I type this, I've been watching as the phone sat solidly on 1 bar, with only 2 bars of wifi.

I'll do the full write up/vid review this weekend with some actual numbers to quantify what I'm seeing. I'm hopeful that perhaps the numbers will not be as drastic a drop off as the graphical representation seems to indicate. I really do quite fancy the look of the case: the fact that the bottom APPEARS to be thin enough to work with my dock connectors etc is a big plus. I actually even like the way the logo looks...which is quite saying something as someone who generally prefers as logo-less a look as possible. Overall a very nice looking case, well done over all in terms of look and feel.
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A review without pictures ( Edit:found them 10 posts after op) and prices..... nice
 
Here's couple of pictures of orange and light grey. Quality is really nice and the fit is perfect. GPS lock is few seconds slower than naked phone but is accurate. Signal loss is negligible.
 

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I ordered on Monday and received it today via USPS. e13ctron is located in Fresno, CA and I live in SoCal.
 
wylee said:
Here's couple of pictures of orange and light grey. Quality is really nice and the fit is perfect. GPS lock is few seconds slower than naked phone but is accurate. Signal loss is negligible.
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I love the look of your case. The back piece is perfect for that color. Mine is supposed to be here tomorrow and it is that color also. Where did you get that back piece? I am exited for mine to show up tomorrow. Your looks great though and I am still amazed by the quality of the pieces. They match up perfectly on every case I have seen so far. Seems to be a very excellent, quality case. Tomorrow can not come soon enough.
 
scelzifan said:
I love the look of your case. The back piece is perfect for that color. Mine is supposed to be here tomorrow and it is that color also. Where did you get that back piece? I am exited for mine to show up tomorrow. Your looks great though and I am still amazed by the quality of the pieces. They match up perfectly on every case I have seen so far. Seems to be a very excellent, quality case. Tomorrow can not come soon enough.
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The back piece is just matte grey vinyl. I have a craft/vinyl cutter so I cut my own pieces. It's nice cause I can change it up anytime I get bored with a color :)
 
I received my e13ctron case today and it is as advertised. I took vacation for the rest of the week so I got it this morning and have been playing with it ever since. First off the packaging is pretty plain, but as explained, they are working on new packaging. Everything arrived in good shape except for one of the inserts was bent out of shape(could have been the cold weather)but that was the only issue I had. It made it a little more difficult to get everything put together correctly. But once it was on it was as advertised. The finish is EXCELLENT, the fit is terrific also. I am not really going into specific's on performance because I have only been using it a few hours but the signal only dropped maybe 5 db's or so, very very minimal. GPS was pretty accurate, it did take a few seconds longer to lock on to me than usual but once it did, it followed me perfectly. Wifi is also unaffected, my speed is just like it was with the apple bumper. No 3G to test it with yet but overall, this case is terrific. I have NO complaints at all. It looks great, it's very light, the anodizing is great. I would say that this has to be the best looking and performing aluminum case on the market from what I have seen and read. I would take a few pictures but its the same color as bigahbeeb's and wylee's. But I will still take some this evening. Also it fits aftermarket cables and will dock also. The headphone jack is pretty tight but my Bose fit fine, just a little snug. All in all, I would highly recommend this case. Because if it works in my area with terrible service, I would not see why it would not work anywhere unless you are barely getting 1 bar then you might have a problem but I would still say you will be ok. I will post up some pics and a little more feedback later when I have some more time to observe it. Shipping was also very fast, and they were very quick to reply to all my emails. Great people to work with.
 
Ok, here is my input on this case. I have to say I love it more than the Atomic hybrid, sadly, just because of its looks, its non-hybrid nature AND its lack of impact of cellular/wi-fi/gps performance for me and the wife, in our service area.
I will say kudos to them for their design, even though I recall bashing the company for thread-jacking in the past. I am able to dock and charge the e13ctron case in my Griffin Power Duo (not using the supplied inserts) without resorting to a 30 pin extender/adapter. Nothing really more to add that hasn't already been addressed in the mini-review or the other full review. I ordered like 3 days ago and shipping and service was fast, but that could be because I'm also situated in California. They are located in Fresno, CA. I flubbed the color choice for my wife's case and e-mailed them, and they fixed it before it shipped. I'd have to say they are pretty responsive, maybe in part to the fact that they maybe they haven't gotten "too popular" to keep up with demand. The cases are pricey, but for me I'm retiring my Atomic for this case. Here are some pictures for eye-brain digestion and I apologize if they are not ideal photos, but I whipped them up in a hurry. I chose to go all solid colors, with red/red for me and purple/purple for the wife.

Atomic & e13ctron
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e13ctron x2
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