iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Sunday, January 9, 2011
News Category: iPod Accessories, CES iLounge Pavilion, iPhone Accessories

Incipio is showing a Game Boy-inspired iPhone 4 case at its booth in the iLounge Pavilion at the 2011 International CES, as well as a number of other cases demonstrating innovative design techniques. The Game Boy case features button color, texture, and placement that’s nearly identical to Nintendo’s original Game Boy, with raised button surfaces, recesses around the buttons and to represent the original device’s speaker holes, and an opening to represent the screen that also allows for visibility of the iPhone 4’s Apple logo. Due to obvious legal concerns, the company has no current plans to mass produce or sell the case, but is instead showing it as a demonstration of its production capabilities.

Other highlights from the booth include an impressively thin battery case for the iPhone 4, sporting a 1450mAh rechargeable cell, a front mounted power button and LED charging status lights, a bottom mounted micro USB charging port and microphone pass through, and overall body dimensions that shave millimeters off of competing designs, particularly in height and depth, adding little bulk to the handset. A new range of cases is also on display, including a variety of both single- and two-piece multi-material designs and the company’s new Alpine Stars-branded cases, all showing a commendable level of fine detail. Details include beveled edges between the hard and soft pieces of some designs, small ridges milled into a black plastic camera surround that are meant to improve flash photography, and interior details like graphics and padding strips.

Outside of the company’s traditional cases, Incipio is also showing a new line of fashionably-colored headphones and a new range of bags, featuring details like ballistic nylon exteriors, TSA-compliant laptop carriers, and soft, padded compartments for the iPod and iPhone with headphone cable pass-throughs, and removable inserts for repurposing general-purpose bags into compartmentalized camera cases.