Written by Thomas on Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Review: Otterbox Blackberry Bold Defender Case

What do you do with a sleek, but vulnerable new Blackberry Bold? Sure, it’s easy to grip and has a chrome finish and a leather back — but what about drops and falls?! I remember seeing a post on Boy Genius Report about dropping a Bold and it didn’t end on such a good note. But that’s why Otterbox exists — specifically in the form of the Defender case for the Bold. It’s made of plastic and silicone and teaches your device some basic judo to handle falls.

But what happens when you put a slim and sexy Blackberry into an Otterbox? Will you end up with a Bold or a Boulder?

Installing

This was my first time using an Otterbox product and I was impressed to see how solid everything looked and felt right out of the box. You’ve got three major layers of protection here:

super screen protector
hard case
silicone suit

You can choose whether or not you want to use the screen protector since it makes up the first layer of protection (only shown above, since I took it off for other pics). The interesting thing about this protector is that it is a non-stick, transparent piece of plastic that protects the front and back of the Bold. It’s actually just held in place by the hard case that you snap on right over it – so it’s easy to add or remove as you choose.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any easy way to get rid of all the bubbles that inevitably appear on the screen (despite a lot of squeegeeing on my part). The portion that covered the keypad worked perfectly and stayed in place, but the bubbles on the screen did bug me. Overall I thought this bit of protection was a bit overboard for regular Blackberry usage, since the hard case does a fantastic job of covering all the important areas anyway. But it’s great to have the option for even more hardcore protection.

Whether or not you choose to use the screen protector, the next steps are always the same: snap the plastic hard case onto the Bold and then pull the silicone suit over all of it. I love the fact that the silicone slips over the whole of the case. I’ve dropped hard cases before and they’ve just come apart the moment they hit the ground. This sent the device held within bounding along the floor completely unprotected. But since there’s this neat old silicone covering over the Otterbox case it probably acts like a rubber band and holds the whole thing together in the event of a fall. I eventually did drop the case, and I’m glad to report both the case and its contents are still in pristine condition.

Ports and Cards

You can still charge and listen to music with the Otterbox on, but you can’t access the MicroSD card slot. The other compromise here is acclimatizing to the border around the keyboard and trackball. If you tend to navigate the keyboard with the tips of your thumbs you’ll be just fine, but I know some people who like to use the controls with the pads of their thumbs who had trouble getting used to this more “confined” set up (since the hard case has ridges that rise above the front of the device).

The last thing you’ll also have to get used to is keeping the whole kit and caboodle away from dusty areas. Silicone loves dust and dust loves silicone, and when you let the two get together they can be hard to separate without very vigorous paper towel wiping.

Holster!

What this all means is that your Bold will be protected, but it’ll also bulk up a fair bit. You’ll either think it looks “ugh kinda big” or “oh my god my phone is a Panzer tank” (i.e. awesome).

However, unlike a Panzer tank the Otterbold can still fit into a holster – a handy dandy holster included with the case!

It can be just a little bit stiff at first, but I’d rather have that firm seal in the holster than have the Bold go flying out. Otterbox also had the good sense to include the magnet that turns the Blackberry to sleep mode while it’s in the holster. Sleep!

Conclusion

Short of using your safety deposit box, I don’t think there’s any better way to keep your Bold protected than Otterbox’s Defender Case. It toughens the device up so that it can take falls like a champ. A few weeks into this review I actually dropped the device from about three feet, but it landed gracefully and on its feet (ok, not really). It is still in pristine condition though, and that’s all thanks to Otterbox.

Now I just have to wait until they make their own clothing line so I can walk out of my house in hard plastic and silicone and fall off of everything.

What I liked:

insane level of protection
sacrifices slim factor; but it’s still a Bold and not a Boulder

What could use improvement:

is it possible to make silicone less of a dust magnet?
perhaps a separate screen protector and keypad guard so that you can get rid of all those darn bubbles
no SD card access, although I really don’t blame Otterbox for this

You can pick up your own Blackberry Bold Defender Case for $49.95 at Otterbox.com. If you don’t like the all black design, maybe try the yellow one out!