iLounge

Company: More Thing

Website: www.More-thing.com

Model: Noel

Price: $30

Compatible: iPhone 3G

More Thing Noel Case for iPhone 3G

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Friday, January 2, 2009
Category: Cases - iPhone 3G / 3GS

Though we're not fond of the design of the rear shell -- it has one of those stupid cut-outs for the Apple logo, covered by an included piece of film -- More Thing's Noel ($30) combines a glossy (and scratchable) rear plastic shell in your choice of colors with an included front mirror film protector and two polishing cloths.

As much as we seriously dislike the most recent wave of Asian OEM simple snap-on rear shells with garish rear holes, and find this case’s unusually open corners to be unappealing, we’ll give credit to More Thing for at least attempting to assemble a decent bundle here. Offering substantial mirrored protection for the iPhone’s front, back and sides takes what’s otherwise a familiar and bad shell design and transforms it into something closer to a themed full case, albeit without the class or high-quality finish we typically expect from a $30 protective solution. Large openings on the top, bottom, and sides leave the iPhone 3G’s ports and buttons completely exposed; cases we’ve seen for the same price do a better job.

Similar offerings from Elago and Mezotek merely depressed us. More Thing’s version, while more expensive and not hugely better, strikes us as a little more interesting but still not worthy of recommending generally to our readers. A more protective, classier-looking rear shell design would make all the difference.