Phone, to case or not to case

Surfing around my Facebook homepage this morning as usual and I saw one of my friend sharing an interestingly titled article from Gizmodo here.
That whole article is about how the author Jamie Condliffe disagree with the idea of using a phone case on a mobile phone. He described it as "Putting a case on your phone is a little like painting your Ferrari with rust-proofing paint, then wrapping it in burlap. "
I am absolutely disagree with his opinion on that article. Those whole article are pointless and way too emphasized on his personal experience.
There are several type of people who uses a phone case.



I want my phone to be unique. 
The first kind and most common type of people who bought a cheap case off ebay are those who want their phone to stand out from the crown. This particularly applied on common iPhone owner. I have to admit iPhone is a really well designed phone. It is slightly 'under-designed' to suit everyone's taste. Some might really loves the design but few will really hate the design (unless they hate the idea of Apple itself). Hundreds and thousands of cases for iPhone in different form factor has popped up across ebay. Some looks simple some looks elegant some looks ridiculously funny and some are absolutely pointless.

There are simple plain cases like these...

...insanely over-designed case like these...

...or even utter impractical case like these that covered the camera


Whether you called it creatively designed or dumb, every of them looks different and it will definitely make an iPhone stand out from the rest. This is one of the reason why they like these case to strap on despite some of them are heavy and impractical.

They don't have the colour I want 
This is a different case. As we all know most of the phone nowadays especially those high end phones only come in 2 colours. Either black or white. Not everyone likes the idea of have every of their gadgets being monochromatic. They want something more alive.

Nokia N8, one of the few high end phone that comes in a variety of colours.


Looking at Nokia N8, it is one of those few high end phone that comes in a variety of colours but these raised another question. From a design point of view, one of the main advantage of monochromatic colours are they appeared subtle and less attractive to the eyes. Those hordes of black and white slabs out there although looks plain, they won't feel boring after staying with you for 2 years. It is like a coat for a man, they looks great, but subtle enough to not annoy anyone. Those fancy blue pink red yellow or whatever colours you can come out with might looks attractive in the first month but started to feel annoying after a few months. It is not like a car where you can repaint it in another colour but you have to stuck with that boring and annoying [insert colour here] for the rest of the contract. This is why those simple colourful case sell so well. If I want my phone to looks blue I will just ordered a cheap little made in China blue case from ebay and stuck in on my phone. As soon as I got annoyed of that bright blue and take it off and get a new colour. Neat.

I don't want to scratch my lovely expensive phone
Although it is not as expensive as a car or a house, a phone is still consider as a luxury to a lot of people out there especially to those who live in third world country or those who don't get their phone from a contract. Mr.Gizmodo guy said that those phone are designed to survive but the fact is not all phones are designed to do that. He probably enjoyed high end phone from day one that he haven't seen those cheap resistive touch screen phone that has a screen made out of vulnerable plastic. Without a screen protector it will definitely get scratch within a weeks, not months! Even in a lot of those high end phone with glossy back (iPhone 3G, 3GS, countless Samsung Galaxies) get scratch really easily. My Nexus S as a former Android flagship phone is so stupidly designed that the camera lens are almost (less than a millimeter away) parallel to the Samsung hump on the other end of the phone. In another word, when you lay the phone flat on surface, the camera lens and the hump are the 2 only contact point of the phone with the surface.

They should fire the designer who made this.

 It is about one millimeter away from the surface when lay on absolutely flat surface but on a non flat or soft surface the camera is facing flat on the surface and it will definitely prone to some really bad scratches. I have to get a case from ebay to add some thickness to the phone so the camera can stay further away from the surface. While the Gizmodo guy said about resell value of a phone, I don't think anyone want their phone to get any scratches even they don't plan to sell their phone, right?

Stupid Ferrari with paint theory
I was like wtf when I first read that in Gizmodo. How would he compare an iPhone or whatever 'normal' phone to a Ferrari? The equivalent of a Ferrari in the world of mobile phone should be something like a Vertu. And yes I haven't seen someone stick a phone case on a Vertu yet. The equivalent of an iPhone to car should be something like a Toyota or maybe a BMW at most. There are lots of car owners out there love to put bodykits or stick some stickers on their car to make them unique or simply to suit their taste. There is absolutely nothing wrong about that and what's wrong with doing the same for mobile phone?

In conclusion
In conclusion I can't stressed more that design and beauty are subjective. Some are more design conscious than other while some are more tasteful than other. And because of this they are countless amount of different cases to match this demand. Not every industry design in this world has to be purely for practical purpose. Aesthetics has its reason to exist alongside with practicality. The reason why Henry Ford eventually lost the dominance in car market is because he emphasized too much in practicality while his competitors come out with the idea of aesthetics alongside with practicality.