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).
