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cases

March 27, 2014 By Nick Giustina

G-Form iPad / Notebook / Laptop Extreme Sleeve Computer Cases

G-Form Case
G-Form Extreme Sleeve Case

A year ago, COG reviewed the Pelican HardBack Laptop case. We thought the HardBack’s most bombproof available. See COG’s index.

Then last summer a Verizon tech rep stopped us along Outdoor Retailer’s Salt Palace’s far aisle. He handed us a Verizon smart phone streaming cool video. No protective case for this phone, we noticed.

“Drop the phone… no! Not on the carpet, on the bare concrete!” So from chest height, we drop the smart phone. After years of trying specifically not to do this, dropping a phone onto the floor is harder than you’d think.

The Verizon labeled smartphone bounces hard, edgewise off the bare floor. And the video’s still running.

Next, Verizon’s rep grabs the phone off the floor and tosses it into a fish tank…full of water. The phone’s twelve inches underwater now: And we can plainly see the phone still streaming video.

“So, how long have you been dropping and dunking this phone today,” we ask.

“This is my third trade show on this phone.”

COG should have seen that one coming. But we’re too stunned even to test phone performance. Check with Verizon: it’s too much for us and maybe too good to be true. Other reviews are “mixed.” Casio G’zOne Commando 4G LTE from Verizon.

But…not so fast!

The most extreme demo for hand-held, electronic-device impact protection we’ve ever heard about couldn’t be found on the main OR Show floor.

As usual, the COG team had to hunt up OR’s greatest gear at the new vendor’s pavilion. Outside. Around the corner.

This is the “back 40 (acres)” at OR: this outer circle of hell, a cyclical limbo where vendors new to OR await their turn for booth space on the main show floor: “Main Street,” the Salt Palace’s central selling-floor where we find retailer traffic most intense; retailer buying (“writing paper” in vendor parlance) fever pitched if not out-right frantic.

(A long digression here on “tent city”: So we fight our way out of the Salt Palace Convention Center, through downtown SLC traffic, across the street to the tent city sheltering the new vendors. We notice: why has the traditional, OR bouldering “wall” moved from the foot of OR’s Main Street, the Summer OR industry’s very heart, to the lifeless pavement outside the new vendor’s pavilion? Yes, we can see the bouldering area’s now cheek-by-jowl with the fly-casting tank and the SUP/Kayak tank. Clearly, management wants $ revenue from the casting tank, SUP tank and climbing wall floor space, formerly sited on the main floor…However, since “OR” first “demo-ed” itself as the SportsExpo, back hall of Vegas’ annual Ski Industries of America (SIA) show (early 1980s), the bouldering area’s “demos” have allowed gear makers and retail shop folks common ground. And, no! A demo day prior to the trade show doesn’t fill the same function. Authenticity is verified when SUP/Kayak tank, casting tank and bouldering wall physically “back” manufacturer sales folks on the sales floor: immediately adjacent to product display booths and “writing rooms” where those products actually “move” towards you, the end user. Shutting the “demo” gear/function out onto the sidewalk makes the trade show more profitable for show owners, no question. But the attendant reduced conviviality (let’s call that “fun factor”) on the trade show’s sales floor will function as a false economy: all parties will realize less $ over time. New OR Show owners…are you listening?)

Nevertheless, we’re wandering the new vendor’s pavilion wondering what could be cooler than the Pelican HardBack iPad Case. Maybe a smartphone too tough for a case?

 We’re stopped dead in our tracks: some guys are dropping a 15-pound bowling ball four feet straight-down onto a concrete block. Between the bowling ball and the concrete block: the G-Form guys have placed an iPad streaming a movie. We couldn’t help but wince at the impact: hand-crushing blows.

But the iPad’s movie doesn’t skip a frame. The bowling ball just bounces “dead” against the iPad’s protective G-Form Extreme Sleeve.

G-Form Case
G-Form Extreme Sleeve Computer Cases

What the…?Bystanders wanted to stop the madness, but the bowling ball drops time and again. After each drop, the iPad streams faultlessly inside the G-Form Extreme Sleeve.

G-Form also makes pads for moto-cross clothing, extreme cyclists, roller derby. OK, maybe not roller derby. But these pads really deaden impact.

How much?

The Extreme Sleeve booth display continues on-screen, cinema-verite style. Outside; helipad; chopper waiting in the background. The iPad’s tips toward the camera, a movie streams (“Chinatown”) as the iPad slides into a G-Form case, then lands in the helicopter. The helicopter lifts away from the camera, straight-up, 500 feet.

You guessed it! The G-Form case falls free of the helicopter, 500 feet, back down to the tarmac. Without cutting away, the camera closes-in on the downed G-Form case. Hands reach from off-screen, pull the iPad from the sleeve: “Chinatown” is still streaming.

Or you could read G-Form’s tech blurb:

“Our athletic and consumer electronic products utilize RPT™ – Reactive Protection Technology. RPT™ is a combination of PORON®XRD™ material and proprietary G-Form technology that instantly stiffens upon impact and absorbs over 90% of the energy, offering state-of-the-art impact protection in a lightweight, flexible form.”

COG likes this better: 15-pound bowling balls and 500 foot free-falls. Your case or mine?

$70

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: cases, G-Form

July 28, 2012 By Nick Giustina

Pelican 1075 Hard Case IPad/Netbook

Usually we put the OR show vendor’s official product website stuff early in our coverage, thereby enhancing whatever worldly tone we can put forward…or at least, giving us a target for cynicism. But this new Pelican case presents a problem for our staff. Our most senior staffer has for years carried his notebook computers in hard leather, portfolio-style cases. Besides looking most business-like, our man about town appreciates the way his patina-aged computer case “holds on” to the leather seats of his Italian sports car. Think Fellini’s La Dolce Vita movie in black and white, Armani suits and Roma, and you’ve got the picture of one of our COG guys. (Just don’t call him Marcello.) Of course, this kind of action, sliding around and off car seats whipping though the via Veneto, sends shock waves straight through leather portfolios and rattles our COG issued laptops to their very photo-etched cores. Now our other senior COGger goes quite the other direction: full armored Pelican case protection before he’ll move his laptop across the room. And these are the full suitcase-sized, bullet-proof Pelicans that need a screw-mounted vent-port (releasing trapped air pressure) to get the case opened anywhere above sea level. One of these reporters requires a laptop repair every few months; the other guy’s computer works perfectly through the time the OEM stops making updates for it. It’s the old dating conundrum: no protection or too much?

Well, Pelican may have been a little slow to that laptop party, but the result debuting at Summer 2011 OR was well worth the wait. Our fashion forward reporter can have a lightweight, most European-trim case that’ll shed shock and water on any James Bond outing across the curbs and cobbles. Meanwhile our over anxious, mild-mannered reporter can get his notebook past the stewardess and into an overhead compartment without an excess baggage charge. Besides which, none of our COG laptops needs to be waterproofed down to 300 feet. We know it’s tough to give up that old Pelican, deep-water air-seal but we’ve just got to keep the TSA security line moving: enough with the old six-point locking systems!

Besides the information Pelican allows in the, there’s more to report. If you can believe this, the formal press release UNDERstates a delivered product’s features? We think this is entry #2 in the COG oxymoron sweepstakes, good-for-the-consumer category. But we saw with our own eyes. These new Pelican HardBack cases come in sizes to fit computers to 13 inches, not just the stated 10 inches. The iPad units look compact enough for a jacket pocket. Another configuration presents an Apple keyboard and opens as a stand to hold the iPad-as-monitor. Drop proof and water proof (OK, they still sport a pressure-release valve, but now it’s automatic) with form-fitted or custom interior cushioning, the new Pelicans are less than 1/3 the bulk/weight of the old, throw ‘em in the whitewater units…and so stylish your better-half won’t be embarrassed to go boulevarding with you. And as the copy states, the new HardBack will fit inside any soft bag, so you don’t have to go naked if you (or your laptops) need to go undercover.

$85

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: cases, Pelican

July 26, 2012 By Chas Bruce

DryCase Waterproof Tablet Bag

DryCase Waterproof Tablet Bag
DryCase Waterproof Tablet Bag

Now you can carry your iPad or other iTablet safely to the Beach. No worries on water splashes or gritty sand.

DryCase is a flexible, crystal clear waterproof case that allows complete use of your tablet or e-reader while keeping it dry and clean. The crystal clear plastic makes for great photographs.

It was surprising that in spite of it’s thick and sturdy plastic the touch screen was fully up to speed, and easy to navigate the tablet. We dipped it after a quick pump session, but we were not so daring with our own iPad, but Drycase claims that it is not just splash proof, but tested to 100 feet for an hour.

Fits tablets up to 8 x 10.5 inches. Uses a waterproof headphone/microphone connector. Buds plug right in and the sound is great, but if you need your screen time under water, the DryBuds accessory waterproof earphones are available for $30.

Comes with convenient Hold Handle, E-Z Lock Top, One Way Check Valve, Hand Vacuum Pump. Drycase offers other dry bags in various sizes for cell phones, mp3 players, cameras and other electronic devices.

$60

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: cases, Drycase

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