Accessory Review: Amzer Silicone Skin Jelly Case for Samsung Focus

One of the first things we did after unwrapping our shiny new Samsung Focus and blinding our eyes with its beautiful Super AMOLED screen was going online and shopping on Amazon. We just bought a brand new smartphone worth $500 off-contract, so we definitely thought we may need some kind of protection for it. In our hunt we spotted the Amzer Silicone Skin Jelly Case for a mere $6 that day so we pulled the trigger. The case is still at a great bargain price of $9.95 on Amazon right now but is it really worth the price? We've been using the case for the past three months, so jump past the break for what we think of this on-the-cheap solution for smartphone protection.

Let's quickly describe the Amzer case so you can better idea of what we're dealing with. The one we purchased was colored black and it is a soft-touch silicone case. This is not a hard silicone case, but rather one of those extremely flexible twisting cases. Of course it is slightly bigger than the actual Samsung Focus itself because it has to fit around it. The case also mimics the 'racing' design by following the Focus' curved lines in the back and "hump" at the bottom. It also preserves all of the functionality of the phone, which some other cases tend to forget. The Amzer case provides cutouts for the microUSB port (it was large enough to still open the door), the 3.5mm headphone jack, the microphone on the bottom, and the camera and speakerphone on the back. Meanwhile there are padded silicone 'buttons' that go on top of the left-side volume rocker, the right-side power and camera shutter button. Finally the case also slightly raises the phone from the front, meaning that your precious Super AMOLED display will have a better chance of surviving a critical drop thanks to the distance between it and its potential murderer.

So how does the Amzer case actually feel? Extremely comfortable actually; the Samsung Focus on its own is a little too slick-and-slippery for our tastes. While we prefer our devices without a case on them, the Amzer case undoubtedly adds a nice amount of weight and offers huge improvement in your grip on the phone. Another huge improvement is the silicone buttons that align on top of the hardware ones, which makes the slightly-recessed buttons of the Focus much easier to press. Trust us, after taking a few pictures with the case on you'll be in love with that padded shutter button. We were concerned if the short, circular microphone cutout may be 'tunneling' the range of the microphone; when we asked people to compare the audio quality with the case on versus the case off while on a phone call, they said they could not tell a difference. We've also knocked the phone around quite a bit with the case on and we noticed the impact seemed dull, likely thanks to silicone's superior shock absorbency, so you can rest easy knowing the Amzer will protect your phone from the daily bumps and bruises.

All appears well in Amzer's favor, but there are some issues that could be deal breakers for some of you. We noticed that all along the sides of the case, there is a line that appears to have bridged the gap between the front and the back of the silicone. Besides not looking quite that great, we also spotted some extraneous plastic sticking out from this separation when we first received the case which doesn't give Amzer great marks for manufacturing quality control. Also despite the soft-touch exterior being very comfortable in hand, its not really the best material in the world. The biggest issue we had with the silicone quality was the case's tendency to snag on clothing. This made pulling the phone out of a jeans pocket harder than it should have been because it would drag against the fabric. That's bad enough, but once you get it out of your pocket you'll find that your case has turned a shade of light gray. How? The new paint job is thanks to all of the lint in your pocket, which will coat the majority of the phone in small furry particles. The dust really sticks to the case too, which means just trying to wipe it off by hand won't work. The two best approaches we found to clean the case was to either take it off the phone and whip it around vigorously to shake it off, or to get a tiny bit of water and use it to pick up the dust. Either way, it's more work and more time than a phone should take to pull out from your pocket and use. If this is something that annoys you, like it did with us, it will likely drive you insane.

Conclusion
The Amzer silicone case offers a lot for a fraction of the exorbitant prices other companies charge for their protection accessories.

The cutouts work perfectly fine, the buttons contribute to the comfortable use, and the raised edges along the front offer added peace of mind. However, these are basics that every silicone case worth the money should be doing anyway and it's the Amzer's negatives that really drag it down by several levels. The case appears cheap when you look closely and noticed the patchy work when they manufactured the gap between the front and back, but the mediocre quality look even more obvious when you pull your out of your pocket and someone asks if it's snowing in your pants. The Amzer silicone case is a perfectly reasonable choice if you're not willing to shell out the cash for those ridiculous $30 options, but it's certainly not a case to write home about and achieves nothing extraordinary besides its price point.