I'm more or less looking for feedback from those people who have owned both cases. I've read a ton if reviews for both the Fre and Nuud ranging from "the greatest invention ever made" to "not worth a penny." I trust the opinions of forum users over Joe Smith who left a negative review on Best Buy or Amazon. I'm leaning towards the Nuud but have heard about terrible audio problems (people not being able to hear you) when using the case. Thoughts?
I guess I qualify to give an opinion then. My phone had been in a Fre case since they first were available in November of 2012 until last week Wednesday, when I finally got the Nuud case. In my opinion the Nuud case wins hands down.
Both cases are waterproof, so they have membranes over the speaker and microphone. This will affect audio quality to some extent and there's really no way to get around that and still have a waterproof case. In my opinion, both of the cases are similar in that regard, but I think the Nuud might sound slightly better on calls (it has a different membrane over the earpiece). There definitely does seem to be some variation from one case to another, even within the Nuud or Fre line, so if you get one that sounds terrible it might be a good idea to try to exchange it for another.
I also had some issues with other people hearing me while I was talking on the phone with the Nuud case on. In my case, turning Hearing Aid mode on made a big difference, so that might be something to try as well.
However, the big difference for me is the lack of a screen protector on the Nuud. I had delt with the screen protector on the Fre for 8 months and while I didn't like it, I put up with it for the water protection it provided. When I finally put on the Nuud case I couldn't believe what a difference not having a screen protector made. Not only was it easier to use the phone, since you could touch the screen directly, but the screen looked much better. The screen protector on the Fre has a bit of an antiglare coating and that affected screen quality much more than I realized while I had the case on.
Of course, there are probably some downsides to the Nuud case that come with not having the screen covered. For now I have left my screen completely naked, but I am still debating putting on a screen protector of some sort to protect it from scratches. A 'regular' stick on screen protector should affect the screen sensitivity and quality much less than the one built into the Fre case.
Also, as you mentioned above, there is a second seal that could potentially leak. This was a bit of a concern to me and I wanted to see how good the seal was, so I took the case with little plastic fake 'phone' that they include with the case for testing and played with it in the bathtub for a while. Instead of just holding it underwater like they suggest for a water test I took the case and pushed it through the water from one side of the tub to the other as quickly as I could... mostly with the screen facing forward, but also from other angles. I also slapped the case down into the water, again, with the screen facing the water and also from other angles. I tried as hard as I could to get water in that case for about 10 minutes (and splashed quite a bit of water out of the tub in the process) but in the end, it remained bone dry. I am quite happy with the way the seal performed.
HTH,
Brett
