I got an Otterbox for our first iPad (v1). It seemed to offer a lot of protection, but it was big and heavy and expensive. The idea of using something like that on a phone seemed counterproductive (it would make it harder to put in a pocket, for one thing).

I've got our Nexus 4 in a thin generic leather flip-cover like this (but not this exact item) - http://www.amazon.co...us/dp/B000LGAF0I/ . It's Ok, but not ideal.

I've thought about what I would use if I got a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini or similar and hadn't found something that I was happy with. The Cruzerlite TPU case looks like it might be a good compromise. http://www.amazon.co...el/dp/B00EDNK64A/

Thanks for mentioning it!

Cheers,
Scott.

:-)

Of course, it's a tough hill to climb - the folks making cases no doubt have already patented the obvious (and many not so obvious) things... Accelerometers were important in things with hard drives - dunno if they'll help in protection for things with Flash RAM these days. Maybe if you tied an accelerometer into a phase change material that would go from hard to soft when it senses it is falling. ;-)

The Otterbox Defender claims to address issues like that and have multiple layers to cover the various functional needs. But when you don't need those various protections (99% of the time), it gets in the way.

http://www.otterbox....cgid=ipad-2-cases - $90 for the iPad v2 version (they don't sell the v1 version any more). :-/

If one is willing to spend $90 for a case, one probably has AppleCare+ for it as well ($99 ($90 at Amazon) + $50 for each incident (up to 2) for 2 years total coverage). AC+ might be a better value than the case. And there's things like SquareTrade with roughly similar damage coverage (maybe?) for an additional year for a similar price (but no deductible).

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.