As I said in my review of the iPhone 4, it is begging to be protected from the moment you first pick it up. This means that many users will want to find a case very quickly to ensure that early scratches do not occur. I am not a huge fan of silicone cases because they take away all of the style of any phone, particularly the iPhone 4, and so after a quick look around my local mobile phone shops I picked up the Gear4 IceBox Edge case which looked like a good compromise between size, protection and style.
You get the rubber side protection that will enable you to not touch the antenna and thus be able to make phone calls (slight exaggeration) and this is attached to a clear plastic backing which shows off the fact you have the latest iPhone. The quality of the attachment between the plastic and the rubber is superb and I can see it lasting the distance, but the back does get scratched very easily. After only a few days the back on mine has multiple scratches which are starting to be more than noticeable. The construction is the case is of a high quality, but the backing which should be more durable than any other part is too prone to scratches to make it a long term bet.
The depth of the rubber surround and overall dimensions make the Gear4 case one of the best in terms of how it is formed and it represents good value compared to a lot of the silicone cases that are neither practical nor suited to the iPhone design. However, the backing is a problem and simply too prone to scratches to let me recommend it. And I didn’t buy the pink one…
