I just received a bubble-wrap pouch via USPS priority today and gleefully opened it up. Inside was a new Body Glove case for my month-old Bold. I recently had my phone inside a Seidio Innocase/Holster combo but ran into similar problems as others did by snapping a piece of the case when trying to remove it for a battery pull. I’ve got that one out for warranty and it should be back within a few weeks.
Now onto the review:
Upon initial inspection through the OEM packaging, I thought to myself “Wow, this thing is clunky.” I then realized it was solely due to the fact that my phone was recently in an Innocase that is probably one of the thinnest cases around. Initial reactions aside, I quickly opened the package and inventoried everything that came inside.
The case itself is your standard top-half/bottom-half setup. Body Glove touts the fact that the case has a “textured glove material that is easy to grip” – I couldn’t agree more. I’m sure that even if you’re one of those people that sweat profusely from your fingers (ewww), you wouldn’t have to worry about the phone slipping from your grasp. The only observation I can make is that the quality of the textured material, especially around the edges of each half of the case where they meet, isn’t the best. Imagine casting a mold of this case from a dye and when you lift it up, the edges get slightly frayed. That’s kind of how it looks. The interesting thing about the bottom half of the case is that it has a felt-like material on the inside surface that I guess is supposed to help protect the phone. It’s a nice touch, but I question how much protection it really offers. Once clasped together, all the functional ports on the Bold are accessible while in the case save the memory card slot. You’d probably need to take the case apart for a battery pull more often that needing the change SD card tho.
Now comes the part of the case that made me want to get this in the first place – the belt clip/kickstand. The clip itself looks pretty well constructed. I fits around my belt nicely and feels secure while I walk. The clip can rotate into 16 angles and clicks to hold it in each position. To use the kickstand feature, you turn the clip 180 degrees and fold out the support leg. Now you can use that snazzy new Sling Player to watch your DVR on the go from your Bold while its propped up! Very handy indeed. The case itself has a knob on its back that secures it to the clip. This knob also acts as the source of the preset positions when you swivel the case on the clip. It is difficult to remove the case from the clip while it’s on your belt though. I find myself having to use both hands to separate the two. There really isn’t a good way to push the release button on the clip and hold the phone at the same time with one hand.
A neat feature is that if you choose to carry around just the case in your pocket without the clip, this knob is removable. The drawback to this is that taking off the knob means no clip, thus no kickstand – which is this case’s best feature. To remove the knob, simply pop it out by applying pressure from the outside part of the case. The package includes a different piece that you can swap out so that the hole where the knob was gets filled in. Another quality control issue I ran into was that the base of the knob for the clip didn’t fit into the recessed portion of the bottom-half of the case as well as I’d like. Honestly tho, when the phone is inside and the case is snapped together, I’d never see it anyways.
Pros:
Excellent grip
Phone seems well protected
HAS THE KICKSTAND
Cons:
Overall quality is poor
Hard to remove phone from clip one-handed
Feels clunkier than other cases
No Sleep Functionality
Overall, I like this case. It definitely has its upsides and downsides, but I think the peaks outweigh the valleys. It’s hard to compare this case to my Innocase since they each do different things better than the other. In the end, I think I still prefer the Innocase because it fits the phone so well, but there is no comparison to the kickstand that the Body Glove case offers. I love my Slingbox so this case will be getting its fair share of use.
EDIT: PICTURES ADDED IN POST #3 -- I also realized that since I use my phone as my alarm clock at home and when traveling for work that the kickstand turns the Bold into a bedside clock that you don't have to pick up. Another + in the pro column!
Thread Author
#
Body Glove Snap-On Case for Bold 9000 
Removing body glove 
Linear Mode
