Case

Score:74%

Another week, another Nokia N8 case to review. You may remember my original roundup some time ago and then my CC-1005 and FlexiShield reviews? Now comes another hard case, designed to add as little bulk as possible to the N8. It succeeds on many fronts but has a flaw that's silly in the extreme.

Author: Mobile Fun

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So we have the 'Case-Mate Barely There' Nokia N8 case, seemingly coming only in black, though this was indeed a perfect match for my editorial device. The 'Barely There' range of cases includes as its two aims: form fitting design and having an impact resistant shell. Both of which it manages admirably, snapping onto the N8 in a couple of seconds and, indeed, once in place (on a black device) it's actually hard to spot that there's a case in place at all, at least from a metre away.

Nicely fashioned in tough plastic, there's a matt feel that makes the cased N8 feel far less droppable - one of the main aims of any case for this very slippery smartphone. The cutouts are well moulded and genuinely add to the feel of not being able to spot that the case is 'on' - even when using the N8 in-hand.

Yes, the case is advertised as providing protection first and foremost, but with its unibody shell it's still debatable whether the N8 needs extra mechanical protection. The extra grip is the main attraction here for me. Staying with the protection theme, Case-Mate also supply a screen protector (along with an applicator) in each box, though this is somewhat strange since the N8 has Gorilla Glass and its glass is a million times harder than the protector itself.

Maybe Case-Mate never got the memo about the Corning Gorilla Glass? Entirely possible, since it also never really explored a retail N8 and spotted its all important rear microphone (on the side of the camera island). This is the MEMS mike that's used to capture audio when shooting video and a corresponding hole is nowhere to be seen on the Case-Mate:

Which means that, when in this case, all your N8-shot videos will have muffled sound - very definitely not ideal. An obvious DIY fix is to get out a reaming tool of some kind and drill a hole yourself - but this really shouldn't be necessary and Case-Mate has dropped the ball here in a big way, especially considering the N8's core competencies in the video department.

The aforementioned (lack of a) hole apart, the Case-Mate Barely There case does well and feels great in place. And if it saves you dropping your Nokia N8 down a staircase because it didn't slip out of your hand then that may well be the day it earns its keep.

And - if Case-Mate and other manufacturers are reading this - do your homework on each phone - check out ALL its apertures and functionality - don't just go by an early shop sales dummy unit....

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 3 May 2011

Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at 14:06 UTC, May 3rd 2011

Filed: Home > Reviews > Case-Mate for Nokia N8

Platforms: Symbian^3 Categories: Accessories