Got the case then put it on maybe ten minutes after activating my 4S. Haven't had the need to take it out yet. Barely adds any bulk at all and haven't noticed any sort of muffling of the audio. Can't say much for the screen sensitivity because I didn't have a chance to get used to it without the case but I haven't had any issues with it reading my inputs. Also haven't had the air bubble that others have been talking about.
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Life Proof Case
- Thread starter Jmill79
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Horrible customer service
Unofortunately it seems that Lifeproof has some serious problems with their customer service. When I ordered gen 2 Lifeproof case I didn't get any order confirmation. After couple of days I tried emailing their customer support but only reply I have is their automated boiler plate response. I'm seriously thinking about opening a dispute with PayPal if I'm not getting any response from them within few days. If ordering a product from them is this painful then I can't even dare to think how hard it is solve product problems with them. It's crazy that LP seems to only response to complaints posted on their FB page. For some bizarre reason LF has also disabled their own forums so you are either left with email support that has the worst response time I've ever encountered or trying your luck on their FB page. Seriously, are these guys trying deliberately to sink their ship or are they just so clueless that they think nobody cares...
Unofortunately it seems that Lifeproof has some serious problems with their customer service. When I ordered gen 2 Lifeproof case I didn't get any order confirmation. After couple of days I tried emailing their customer support but only reply I have is their automated boiler plate response. I'm seriously thinking about opening a dispute with PayPal if I'm not getting any response from them within few days. If ordering a product from them is this painful then I can't even dare to think how hard it is solve product problems with them. It's crazy that LP seems to only response to complaints posted on their FB page. For some bizarre reason LF has also disabled their own forums so you are either left with email support that has the worst response time I've ever encountered or trying your luck on their FB page. Seriously, are these guys trying deliberately to sink their ship or are they just so clueless that they think nobody cares...
Now Lifeproof CEO is sending apology letters to everyone who have contacted their customer support. My problem still remains other then the pathetic apology letter, Lifeproof hasn't contacted me (the problem is still unsolved).
The reason why I call the letter from CEO a pathetic is reasoning behind it. The letter states that the contacts to their customer support have increased twentyfold and to remedy that they now have increased their support staff eightfold. So now the support person only needs to handle 2,5 times the contacts she / he used to do before the increased interest on Lifeproof... and CEO calls this a way of correcting the situation. What about temps, partial outsourcing during high season? Apparently not their way of doing it... What bothers me the most is the fact that CEO leads us believe that he is only now aware that they have a problem. Either this guy is too far detached from daily routines of his company or their management team is totally incompetent of handling the company. Fixing situations like these is not hard but it takes determination and aggressive use of resources.
The reason why I call the letter from CEO a pathetic is reasoning behind it. The letter states that the contacts to their customer support have increased twentyfold and to remedy that they now have increased their support staff eightfold. So now the support person only needs to handle 2,5 times the contacts she / he used to do before the increased interest on Lifeproof... and CEO calls this a way of correcting the situation. What about temps, partial outsourcing during high season? Apparently not their way of doing it... What bothers me the most is the fact that CEO leads us believe that he is only now aware that they have a problem. Either this guy is too far detached from daily routines of his company or their management team is totally incompetent of handling the company. Fixing situations like these is not hard but it takes determination and aggressive use of resources.
Bought my case a week ago at BestBuy and I have yet made a decision whether to keep it or not.
My sister has otterbox commuter case and its same size and possibly even less bulkier than commuter. So design of the case is really neat and I do have to commend lifeproof for this. Its less bulkier than other cases that serve same purpose.
Pros:
Very light 1.1 oz according to my scale. Doesn't add much bulk. Screen protector is kind of crappy but seems to work fine.
Biggest Pro for me is not having to constantly worry about damaging my iphone. So lifeproof name fits really well with this. I can go about my daily routine and not worry about damaging my iphone.
I can throw it in my pocket without worrying if i have anything there. I can throw it on my desk. I can use my phone when eating without worrying about leaving food stuff on the phone. No worries about spilling any drinks or liquids and damaging my phone. I bought my phone used and it doesn't have applecare + on it. I also tend to resell my gadgets down the line to feed my habit so this actually helps a lot since phone is sitting in its own protected cocoon without being damaged.
No audio issues with speakerphone, normal conversations. Works great.
No issues with camera. I did have a little oil slick but it went away by itself.
Cons:
screen protector. Since I got my case from bestbuy, i got the older version where auto dimming doesn't work. If I'm going to keep the case, I'm going to request new updated version of the front case cover that has a fix for auto dimming.
Another con for me is that i loose the easy of use factor. none of my headphones fit without using the supplied adapter. its not a big deal since I use headphones case and it fits fine. I do have to unscrew the cap cover in order to use headphones but its ok. Also i would need to use dock extender if i want to use any sort of stands with it. Again this is not a deal breaker but more of an annoyance which I think is a small price to pay for the pros of the case. Hopefully some of these will be addressed in lifeproof 2.0 case.
So there we go my mini review and still undecided 🙂
My sister has otterbox commuter case and its same size and possibly even less bulkier than commuter. So design of the case is really neat and I do have to commend lifeproof for this. Its less bulkier than other cases that serve same purpose.
Pros:
Very light 1.1 oz according to my scale. Doesn't add much bulk. Screen protector is kind of crappy but seems to work fine.
Biggest Pro for me is not having to constantly worry about damaging my iphone. So lifeproof name fits really well with this. I can go about my daily routine and not worry about damaging my iphone.
I can throw it in my pocket without worrying if i have anything there. I can throw it on my desk. I can use my phone when eating without worrying about leaving food stuff on the phone. No worries about spilling any drinks or liquids and damaging my phone. I bought my phone used and it doesn't have applecare + on it. I also tend to resell my gadgets down the line to feed my habit so this actually helps a lot since phone is sitting in its own protected cocoon without being damaged.
No audio issues with speakerphone, normal conversations. Works great.
No issues with camera. I did have a little oil slick but it went away by itself.
Cons:
screen protector. Since I got my case from bestbuy, i got the older version where auto dimming doesn't work. If I'm going to keep the case, I'm going to request new updated version of the front case cover that has a fix for auto dimming.
Another con for me is that i loose the easy of use factor. none of my headphones fit without using the supplied adapter. its not a big deal since I use headphones case and it fits fine. I do have to unscrew the cap cover in order to use headphones but its ok. Also i would need to use dock extender if i want to use any sort of stands with it. Again this is not a deal breaker but more of an annoyance which I think is a small price to pay for the pros of the case. Hopefully some of these will be addressed in lifeproof 2.0 case.
So there we go my mini review and still undecided 🙂
kalex are you saying that the LifeProof case can be ones only case? I thought it was the type of case that one would switch to from XYZ when they neeed the protection LP provides?
mpossoff - that is a million dollar question. Its definitely not easy to swap this case regularly and I also read somewhere that there might be a limit on how many times it can be opened and closed. Its not an easy task. First of according to their instructions phone has to be spotless before installing the case. This reduces oil slicks, scratches and other defects. This means I have to get my surgical gloves on and my cleaning kit. Lifeproof advertises the case as every day case. I tend to agree with them and if you can overlook the minor annoyances then you can use it everyday. For these reasons I don't think this case will work as a type of case that allows you to swap it when you need it.
i don't like changing cases so for me I'm trying to figure out if this case can work as everyday case for me. I think that other cases simlar to this case are also not designed to be swappable. Defender and other type of cases take time to attach and close up properly. But unlike other cases lifeproof case is water proof.
There was actually a perfect case use for me the other day. It was pouring outside and i got a call. now previously i would let the call go to voicemail as I didn't want to get my phones wet. Now i just took the phone out of my pocket, answered it and talked without worrying about the rain. This to me is awesome. Another example was when I was at my friend's kid party for his daughter. Table was filled with children stuff and food and it was a mess. I was eating something at the moment. phone rings, i answer it without any hesitation. Once i was done with it, I just washed it in the bathroom sink and dried it with a towel. No stickiness, no mess, and case is back to original form. So basically its an over engineered case that can be simplified a bit in next version. This case is designed for abuse but what I would love to see is something in between of current total protection and regular case like commuter. Basically make it a bit thinner, and shorter and adjust access ports to be water resistant not water proof with O rings.
Hope this helps
i don't like changing cases so for me I'm trying to figure out if this case can work as everyday case for me. I think that other cases simlar to this case are also not designed to be swappable. Defender and other type of cases take time to attach and close up properly. But unlike other cases lifeproof case is water proof.
There was actually a perfect case use for me the other day. It was pouring outside and i got a call. now previously i would let the call go to voicemail as I didn't want to get my phones wet. Now i just took the phone out of my pocket, answered it and talked without worrying about the rain. This to me is awesome. Another example was when I was at my friend's kid party for his daughter. Table was filled with children stuff and food and it was a mess. I was eating something at the moment. phone rings, i answer it without any hesitation. Once i was done with it, I just washed it in the bathroom sink and dried it with a towel. No stickiness, no mess, and case is back to original form. So basically its an over engineered case that can be simplified a bit in next version. This case is designed for abuse but what I would love to see is something in between of current total protection and regular case like commuter. Basically make it a bit thinner, and shorter and adjust access ports to be water resistant not water proof with O rings.
Hope this helps
According to Lifeproof you shouldn't remove the iPhone from the case no more then 50 times during the lifetime of the case. Basically the case is designed to be used all the time. Its not really designed to be switched on and off that frequently.
Is the LP a stylish type case? In my opinion I think the Otterbox Defender is the most stylish rugged cases because it shows Apple logo cut out, it's slim.
I would wait before ordering so that Lifeproof can get their act together. Their customer service is the worst I've ever seen. You have to wait weeks or even over a month to get your order shipped and if something doesn't work the way it should then thats when the real waiting begins. Unfortunately, during that time their customer service doesn't reply to your emails or questions... I still haven't received a single email from them, not even a order confirmation.
Anyway, I got fed up waiting and opened dispute with PayPal. Its now been 24 hours since I opened up the dispute and still I haven't got any reply from Lifeproof. They really have some serious problems in that company
I finally got my order confirmation from Lifeproof and a day later I got the case. At first the case seemed like dream come true but with closer inspection I noticed that there are scratches inside the screen shield... ...and I'm back to emailing their customer support to get a replacement.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)
Quality control might be an issue with this company at the moment. The first case I bought had a host of issues like: the seam on the camera side was not straight and was bigger towards the top, the screen was raised high enough near the home button that I'd accidently hit the button when in my pocket, the camera lens was tilted and looked like it was going to pop out, and the cord cover seemed too easy to pop open. In spite of this, the case was still waterproof and it withstood a 5 ft drop with no problem.
I returned the case back at the store, and swapped it with a new one. The second case was like night and day... it's perfect. No problems whatsoever.
Anyway, I really like this case but you might have to keep returning it to get the perfect one.
Quality control might be an issue with this company at the moment. The first case I bought had a host of issues like: the seam on the camera side was not straight and was bigger towards the top, the screen was raised high enough near the home button that I'd accidently hit the button when in my pocket, the camera lens was tilted and looked like it was going to pop out, and the cord cover seemed too easy to pop open. In spite of this, the case was still waterproof and it withstood a 5 ft drop with no problem.
I returned the case back at the store, and swapped it with a new one. The second case was like night and day... it's perfect. No problems whatsoever.
Anyway, I really like this case but you might have to keep returning it to get the perfect one.
I just bought two of these cases, Gen 2 for two 4s's. They both look and work great, and passed the water tests. The white one has no problems at all, the black one has a screen cover that is slightly raised but is already getting better after being broken in a bit. The speakerphone is slightly muffled but that's to be expected, but if you open up the port cover it removes any muffling.
A bit pricey but it's worth it. My phone costs like 850$, so 80$ on a case isn't that bad if it works. I expected a bit higher quality for my money though, but I am still satisfied.
EDIT: It would be nice if there was some grip on the case, like trac-tec inserts.
A bit pricey but it's worth it. My phone costs like 850$, so 80$ on a case isn't that bad if it works. I expected a bit higher quality for my money though, but I am still satisfied.
EDIT: It would be nice if there was some grip on the case, like trac-tec inserts.
Lifeproof is the only company that I cannot understand how it is run so poorly unless the owners/managers of the company are just rolling in the dough while one poor person is their support. I decided against Lifeproof a few weeks ago after seeing the absolute mess that is their facebook page. At $80 a case and with their popularity (sold at best buy too so not just a small town operation) HOW do they not have enough for tech support/customer service? It's just crazy IMO. I really hope they get their act together someday because I'd like to get a case from them.
Update - I ended up returning it. Protection of the case is not needed in my case so I decided to return it. Overall its not bad but after using iphone in regular thin case its tough to go back to lifeproof. I also had to get a new face cover because mine wasn't compatible with iphone 4s proximity sensor and it was very annoying using it outside. I guess i'll wait for version 3 of the case.
I believe the only difference is a little plastic jut out above and below the side volume/silence buttons to protect them in a drop.
As for my LifeProof case, I'm kind of getting sick of it. While it is nice to have the ability to drop my phone in water, the screen has awful oil slicks (or "Neptune rings"/whatever they're called) and I'd have to spend another $20 to get the adapter to use it with my car stereo (I'm getting sick of radio stations...). That said, I think I'm going to switch for a BookBook, if not until my replacement front comes (which is supposed to be in about... 4 days from now at the latest, but who knows with the awful customer support).
Speaking of customer support, they have left the worst taste in my mouth. I paid $80 for a case (x2, actually), emailed them about the ambient light sensor and got a canned reply about 3 weeks after the supposed "24 hour" response time. This is a premium product with a premium price, yet I can get better support from people making $.99 knock-off cases in Chinatown.
Unofortunately it seems that my case is suffering from new problem. Part of the rubber seal next to the speaker (inside the case) has come off. I'm not sure if this is rubber thingy is there only to cancel possible eco effects inside the case or if it has something to do with the sealing of the case. Anyway, I have opened the case three times (ones to do the waterproof test and twice to get rid of all the dust particles) and even this seems too much for the build quality even though you should be able to open it 50 times during the lifetime of the case. Unfortunately I still haven't heard anything about my request regarding the replacement case. IMHO, this company should be awarded with worst customer support award of the year. Nothing comes close to this company. I only hope Otterbox comes out with similar case. They have great customer support, excellent build quality and they stand behind their products. That's something you can't say about Lifeproof...
I've had a Lifeproof case since July, I was one of the original pre-orders. The problems I've had, which caused me to remove the case and throw it in a drawer with the rest of my cases that didn't make the cut, were the terrible echo effect when I was talking to someone and the screen does not hold up. After about three months the screen was so scratched and opaque I couldn't really enjoy the phone anymore. I have had screen protectors last longer, much longer. In my option for the money I paid I shouldn't have to shell out another $40 for a replacement cover three times a year.