The Leverage iPhone 4 case is the latest offering from designer Graft Concepts which provides not only elegant design, but also good lightweight protection for your Apple device with an ease of installation not found in many super-thin polycarbonate cases.
Design
The of the biggest advantages of TPU polycarbonate cases is the fact that they are super-slim on the phone, providing decent protection with minimal additional size and weight. The disadvantage though is they always require a large amount of force to install and are equally difficult to remove. The Leverage case solves this problem by their unique leveraging latch system.
Wrapping the phone with the case, the user simply uses the polished metal latch to leverage the case onto the phone in a tight and secured fitting. It’s an ingenious design that’s both simple and elegant. The latch itself also includes a built in button to transfer presses to the covered power button below it.
Included with the packaging is an optional backplate that fits cleanly behind the phone to give you the option of full protection on the rear. A slight lip on the front of the case allows you to place the phone face down without fear of scratching the screen as well.
Cutouts provide easy access to the headphones, side buttons, and the bottom speaker dock connections as well as the camera on the back. The cutouts for the buttons are designed to work on both Verizon and AT&T versions of the iPhone 4.
Construction
The case itself is a hard polycarbonate that is soft to the touch, but very scratch resistant and easy to grip. It has just the right about of grip to make it comfortable and secure to hold, while not being so grippy that it’s difficult to move in and out of a pocket. I had no fear of damaging my phone from drops as the material seems very strong and provided complete coverage of my phone.
The metal latch itself is fairly tough, and made for long term use.
One Design Improvement
After a week of testing, I found the the case held up perfectly well with no signs of wear, which is a good sign considering how tough I am on cases and phones in general.
The biggest glaring design issue though is in the cutout for the dock connector below. The cutout is fitted to a very tight specification, with the material running as close to the openings as possible. While the cutout works fine for the latest generation of Apple dock cables using the super thin connector, the cutout is about a millimeter too thin to support any of the older cable types, such as older iPod style cables or even recent third party cables.
I am unable to use my recently bought Belkin cable with the case as it just won’t fit, and most disappointingly, I am unable to use my in car USB line cable as it also uses a dock connector that’s slightly bigger than supported by the case. Carving out an extra half millimeter from the opening would be sufficient to allow use of any of these other cables.
As this is a preproduction unit, there still time for Graft to fix this one issue.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it’s a great case for a minimalist such as myself. It provides great protection in an elegant design with a unique but immensely useful feature.
The Leverage iPhone 4 case will be available from Graft Concepts on their website for $59.95.
