Category: Reviews

SigniCase is a company specialized in creating all-natural wood cases for iPhones, iPods, iPads and Galaxy Note and S3. Those wood cases are available as plain or engraved with designs, either pre-made or you can make your own design.

I’ll be reviewing two products from SigniCase. In this post, I’ll review their Natural iPhone Amplifier, and in a following post I’ll review the M9 Camera iPhone 4/4S Case.

The all-natural bamboo amplifier is great for anyone who is looking to get a better sound out of their iPhone speakers without having to use expensive speakers or anything that requires an outlet. It amplifies sound naturally using the hollow space inside the bamboo block… all you have to do is place your iPhone, start the music and turn up the volume.

The amplifier works as promised, it really brings out a greater sound than the iPhone’s speakers. Of course, you shouldn’t expect majorly louder sound, but a much better sound than what your iPhone alone produces. And when you’re not using it to amplify sound, it works as a great iPhone stand. It holds the iPhone with or without a case, and you get access to the home button so you can use your phone freely.

 

Carved is a company specializing in wood iPhone, iPad and Kindle skins. The skins are hand-crafted from real wood, and are available as plain wood skins (different type of woods available), art engraved wood skins or custom designed wood skins.

The folks from Carved were kind enough to send in one of their iPhone skins for a review.

The skin I’m reviewing here is the Padauk wood skin for iPhone 4/4S. The skin comes in a nicely illustrated package showing John and Grant, founders of Carved, hand-crafting your wood skin. Fun package idea!

You’ll get a back skin and for an extra $5 you can add the front skin. They’re super easy to apply, just align the camera hole and you’ll be able to easily align the rest… same goes for the front skin. If you got it wrong, you can easily remove it and reposition it. The skin leaves no residue whatsoever. The cuts on the skins are perfectly cut so nothing on your iPhone will get blocked.

The wood skin gives the iPhone a really elegant look and feel. It has a nice texture to it, when you feel it you can tell it’s real wood. It is important to remember that this isn’t a case, it’s only a skin, so don’t expect it to be protective. It works for protecting the phone or tablet from scratches but it won’t protect it from bumps or falls, so you have to keep in mind that it is more of a decorative thing, as all iPhone skins are.

I’m quite happy with the back skin, but not so much with the front skin only because it lacks screen protection. I tried applying the skin on the screen protector I already had on the screen, but as I peeled the skin off to align it correctly, the protector peeled off with it. I think this is a problem with iPhone skins in general rather than Carved skins. Another thing I don’t like is, since the skin has a bit of a thickness to it, it tends to accumulate dust in the corners, which is a problem for a person like myself who has a bit of an OCD and continually wipes the screen. So I hope Carved would find a way to incorporate screen protection into the front skin somehow.

Apart from the front skin issue (which is probably my own issue), I absolutely love the look and feel this real wood skin adds to the iPhone.

You can check out Carved’s entire skins here: http://www.carved.com