Best List: Otter Box Defender Case for iPhone 6 Plus
It happened again yesterday: My beautiful, coveted iPhone 6 Plus found itself airborne, tumbling through time and space. I think it knew where it was headed — I certainly did. I could hear the horrifying noise even before it happened. The inevitable bone-chilling sound of my iOS 9 goodness coming in Force Touch contact with the tile.
I do this often enough to know my cat is running short on lives. This time I lucked out again, but I know the shatter is inevitable. So I’ve turned to the grandfather of iPhone protection: Otter Box and its almost-bombproof Defender series.
The Defender case is designed to wrap your iPhone in rugged, dust-stopping, bounce-worthy, rubber-and-polycarbonate accident insurance. I was a little daunted by the case at first, but Otter Box provides a simple and effective video tutorial on its site. I had my phone loaded up in no time.
The upside is I feel safer and more secure — protected even. The downside is my wafer-thin, highly tuned mobile communication device is now a giant, rubberized brick, and the precision interactive screen is now just a little annoying to use.
That might be too high a price to pay for peace of mind. Only time will tell.
Price: $59.99 list
Cult of Mac’s Best List is a roundup of products that make us stronger than we started. Read more Best List mini reviews.
Jim Merithew is director of content at Cult of Mac and Cult of Android. He is the former photo director of Wired and editor at large of Raw File, Wired’s photography blog. In more than 25 years as a journalist, including eight years at the San Francisco Chronicle, Jim has led award-winning teams and relentlessly spread the gospel of the bicycle. He also plays guitar in Pickle Horse. Follow him on Instagram (@tinyblackbox) and Twitter (@tinyblackbox).
8 responses to “Ol’ fumble finger finds perfect protection for his iPhone 6 Plus”
What is the point of having something that is supposed to protect your phone if it has a hole in the back around the Apple logo? It’s just another big gap where it can get scratched or small dirt particles can get in and scrape the back.
The cut-out for the Apple logo has a screen-protector-like material over it. I have this case.
Ok, that’s fine. I’ve just seen so many cases with a cutout section, and I just think, ‘Why bother?’. It seems pointless.
Vanity knows no bounds.
Why buy the most beautiful phone and then put it in the most ugly case ever? I don’t get it. The Otter case makes an iPhone look like a brick. Unless you are a brick layer why do you need that much protection? Half the joy of owning an iPhone is seeing the beautiful design.
Because you want to protect it. Most people just break theirs. No idea why phones even have such design, and no, I buy my phones for use, not to gawk at them.
I’d never have a phone without a case nowadays when some phones have both front AND back made of full glass and Gorilla Glass is useless.
about the non responsive screen. I have used an otterbox on all my iphones 4,5,6. with the 6 case it is very easy to remove the built in screen protector. i have used my case like this for about a year now and enjoy the impact protection which works prefectly. the screen itself is highy scratch resistant so indont worry about that and very little dust gets is (barely any at all) i even removed the protector from the apple logo just because and it has done nothing to increase the dust issue
Can’t help but laugh at the Apple logo window…every time :D Visited the US a few years back and was wondering why the cases had a hole there and asked to see a friend’s phone and we both lolled :D