All of us Elevation Outdoors readers have an adventure-minded spirit. I love all my cool electronics, but I always make fun of myself that my gear must be durable to suit my lifestyle. I take my Iphone on every ride with me. I use it for photos or for an emergency. I have traditionally put it in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements. While a plastic bag is effective some of the time, it’s really not the best idea to protect my expensive phone! My friend told me to get a Lifeproof case. My initial resistance was a pre-conceived notion that it would be bulky and also compromise the retina display of my screen. The Iphone 5 is sleek and I didn’t want to ruin the design by putting a giant case on it, not to mention that a giant case would take up precious real estate in my jersey pocket. I decided to check it out myself. I found that they had some great color options. I opted for white. 
I thought the packaging was informative and not excessive. It was also easy to manage and not overly complicated when I took it out of the case. 
The instructions had only a few simple steps. I put the phone under water for twice as long as suggested and there was no water leakage. For my use, I don’t anticipate any type of full submersion on my bike! The phone will get completely soaked with water spraying off the trail, or if I get stuck in a rain or snow storm. My old phone had a few problems with the speaker after getting too moist in my pocket. 
Submersion test 
There’s a door that closes for charging and the headphone jack has a plug. The phone comes with an adapter if you want to use headphones because the hole in the case is too deep to insert a normal headphone. I was really happy with the look and feel of the phone case. The screen is completely covered and protected without compromising the retina display. The camera also takes high quality photos without the case obstructing any type of focus. The case is also lightweight. 
The case is also really thin. There’s a window in the back so you can still see the Apple logo. 
As with anything, there are a few design features that could improve. First, when the Iphone is in the case, the screen will sometimes not turn off when I have the phone to my ear. If I rest the phone between my shoulder and face, the screen will be active and sometimes the speaker button is activated with my cheek or my cheek will “end” the call. My friend has the same issue with his case. The other feature for improvement is that the speaker sound is very much compromised by the case. The acoustics are changed and it sounds like the speaker is being blocked, both for music and for talking. I tend to use my phone quite often as a music player. To get around this issue, I purchased a portable bluetooth speaker which is much better and louder than my original Iphone speaker anyway. I ended up being very pleased that I decided to get a speaker. Overall, this is a great case. I would recommend it to friends and rate it 4 out of 5 stars. I love throwing my phone around and not worrying about breaking it!
Aleta Burchyski
January 18, 2024
