I’ve never seen a leather case this inexpensive, but the company claims it’s genuine leather, and the leathery feel and smell of the case give me no reason to believe otherwise. Slide your iPhone in, close the magnet-bound clasp, clip it onto your belt and you’re good to go. The belt clip rotates to five positions through 180 degrees, meaning you can wear it upright or sideways, and the headphone port and speaker are exposed even when inside the case.

That’s the good news. Less ideal is the fact that the design leaves two of the iPhone’s corners exposed and prone to impact damage if dropped. And the way the sides are cut just low enough to expose the headphone port and speaker looks cheap; they could have instead employed cut-out holes and ran the leather higher up the sides, which would have minimized the corner exposure.

The bottom line is no one is going to mistake the Slim Glide for anything approaching a higher-end leather iPhone case, but if you’re working on a tight budget and really want a leather belt clip case, this gets the job done better than I was expecting. No star rating because there’s really nothing to compare it to on that front.

review by Bill Palmer

Plenty of power users won’t leave the house without first putting their iPhone into some kind of battery cradle or battery case, for fear of losing power before returning home. But what if they then want to carry it on their waist? That doesn’t work, as the only way to get belt clip functionality with your iPhone is with a third-party case, and since your iPhone is already inside of… well, you get the idea. So Mophie, who makes the Juice Pack battery cradle and Juice Pack Air battery case, came up with the idea of a holster-style leather case that’s big enough to hold a Juice Pack or an Air with your iPhone inside of it – in hindsight, an idea that’s been long overdue.



The model I tested, the 6000, is very similar in design to various leather holster cases I’ve seen from other vendors: the corners are cut out, the belt clip can only be used horizontally, and the top flap is held in place by a magnet (there are also two other variations, the 5500 and 5000, not tested). The 6000 does offer an internal slot for a credit card or two, but that’s about it; otherwise it’s pretty much in the “strong product but standard fare” category. Except, of course, for the fact that it’s finally allowing me to carry my Juice Pack Air-clad iPhone on my hip instead of in my pocket.



There’s a delicious irony in putting your iPhone into a battery case, only to then put the whole thing into another case, but in this instance it actually makes sense. The last thing I would want would be for the Air itself to be burdened with a built-in belt clip, which would only get used some of the time; this gives me the option of only having the belt clip around when I want it. Of course what I really want is for Apple to magically double the battery life of the next iPhone so external batteries are no longer necessary for most of us – but until such a day theoretically arrives, the Hip Holster does make the iPhone experience easier for those of us who don’t feel safe leaving the house without a battery case or battery cradle in tow.

Learn more about the Hip Holster at Mophie.com.

by Bill Palmer

Marware’s multi-function Convertible cases have taken on a number of incarnations over the years with various iPod and iPhone models, but they’ve generally centered around the idea of a case that comes with a belt clip and an armband, and can be used with either or neither, depending on the scenario.



The new SportShell Convertible comes in the form of a two (technically three) piece hard plastic dark grey shell that slides onto the iPhone which, while it would be “just another iPhone case” if not for the included attachments and functionality, is well done in its own right; for instance the cut-out for the volume buttons and silencer switch is done perfectly, which is still not always a given, even with the iPhone having had the same identical body style for more than a year now.



But you buy this case because of what it can be converted into. The third grey plastic piece on the back can be substituted with a frosted clear piece that has a vertical belt clip attached. And the belt clip can then be slid onto the included adjustable armband in a way that locks it into place and allows it to feel a lot more comfortable than you might expect for something that sounds potentially cumbersome until you see (and feel) for yourself that it does work well.



Using an iPhone on an armband presents two quandaries, of course. The first is whether you want something that bulky on your arm while you’re active (some iPhone users keep an iPod nano or shuffle around for just this reason), and the other is the fact that Apple has inexplicably still not included a setting that allows you to turn the auto-rotation off in the iPhone’s iPod app, causing the screen to keep rotating back and forth as you try to twist your arm to get the iPhone out of that useless Cover Flow mode. But I digress – and that’s Apple’s fault anyway, not Marware’s.



In all, the SportShell Convertible is a very impressive product. As long as you actually look at the directions first, assembling and removing the various components is easy. My only complaints center around the belt clip, which is oddly large to begin with. And while it can be turned upside down, it can’t be used horizontally, which many users find more comfortable. That aside, this is a great multi-function value.

Learn more about the SportShell Convertible at Marware.com.