iLounge

Flip Type

Book Type

Company: PDAir

Website: www.Pdair.com

Models: Book Type, Flip Type

Price: $28-32

Compatible: iPod touch

PDair Book and Flip Type Leather Cases for iPod touch

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By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Monday, December 10, 2007
Category: Cases - iPod touch

Only three months after the iPod touch's release, there are lots of fabric and leather case options out there, so we're moving through another collection of nine options today to help you acquaint yourself with the great, good, and nothing special offerings. Four of the nine cases also come in versions for other iPod models, which we detail briefly alongside them. This review is for the PDair Book and Flip Type Leather Cases for iPod touch.

Having reviewed far too many generic leather cases for iPods over the years, we can safely say that there is nothing remarkable about PDair’s Book and Flip Type Leather Cases for iPod touch. These two $28 leather cases each have PDA-style flip-open front faces: Book opens from the right side, and Flip opens from the bottom. Each case includes a plastic belt clip nub and belt clip, as well as a touchscreen-covering clear plastic protector on the inside. Six standard leature textured colors are available for each version; more expensive crocodile-textured versions are available for $32 each.

Of the two cases, Book looks a little better, and Flip protects a little better. When closed, Book leaves the touch’s entire top and most of its bottom open; with a magnet clasp on the case’s right side holding it shut. On Flip. this clasp covers the iPod’s Dock Connector when the case is closed, and the lid covers touch’s top rather than leaving it entirely open. Both cases nicely accommodate bottom-mounting accessories and oversized headphone plugs, but neither is Universal Dock-friendly.

Our review here is brief for one basic reason: the sale of these cases alongside PDair’s Sleeve Type Leather Case makes almost no sense, given that Sleeve Type offers almost identical protection to the Book version and similarly slightly less than Flip, without putting a big leather lid in the way of your fingers and the screen all the time. PDair’s screen protectors may not be great—they’re a little on the too-thick and -reflective side, making precision typing slightly more difficult, and the hole in each one’s bottom isn’t great—but they cover roughly as much of the iPod touch’s face as most of the leather cases we’ve reviewed, regardless of whether the lid is there or not. The lid adds only one thing: the ability to store two cards. This isn’t a feature we value at all; you might feel otherwise.

So if all three cases are covering the iPod’s screen and body in generally the same ways, with the lids adding only modest amounts of additional face protection, and in the case of Flip, a little extra top protection, wouldn’t a single, better-designed case have done better than all three designs?

Yes, it would have, and thankfully, it has: we’ve seen lots of smarter, more protective iPod touch cases from other companies. These appear to be here mostly to provide options that look a little different from one another at highly similar prices. If one really strikes your fancy, put aside our ratings, which collectively consider their practicality, protection, and quality, and go with the one that does the most for you on appearance, which receives only modest consideration.