Review: Incipio Silicrylic case for Motorola Xoom
If you use a tablet or smartphone as much as I do, you've already noticed how much wear and tear the devices receive from the abuse we put them through. For years I have been using protective cases for my PDAs, phones and tablets.
There is no shortage of great cases for smartphones, and the Apple iPads also have a wealth of sturdy cases, as well as ones made from high quality leather. Unfortunately, there seems to be a shortage of decent cases for android tablets.
There were no high quality leather cases for my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7", nor do there seem to be any for the Motorola Xoom. That isn't to say that there aren't any cases at all; it's just that the leather cases are shoddy, smell bad, and use cheap quality leather.
As for silicone and rubberized cases, there is a wider selection. I long since decided that even though I really like a high quality leather case, for my personal needs a skin or shell case is a lot better. For the Xoom there are a number of options.
The brand-name Motorola case for Xoom at first seems like a great case. It's form-fitting and has a good rubberized feeling to it. The problem is that it's not snug. In fact, all of the edges pull away as if the case doesn't even want to stay on. A good case should not be loose.
The second case I tried was the Amzer Silicone Skin Jelly Case. I thought this would be a better case since the edges overlapped the bezel, which would ensure a snug fit. Unfortunately the case is actually too tight, and results in all of the edges of the skin pulling up and away from the screen.
Finally I looked at the Incipio Silicrylic hard shell case with silicone core. I had the model for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7", and it's definitely a solidly designed case.
While it isn't quite the same as the Otterbox Defender series of cases, it is a quite solid protective case. A heavy duty silicone skin fits over the device, and then a hard shell exoskeleton wraps around it. It's somewhat heavier than a simple silicone skin, which may throw some people off especially if it protects a device that is already pretty heavy.
The Silicrylic case has a built-in stand to prop up the Xoom in landscape mode, but it doesn't have a stand solution for portrait mode--which would be pretty useful for reading books and magazines.
The hard shell portion actually assists in keeping the silicone skin in place. However, I think that there could have been even more improvement in this area. For instance, there are actually no clips on the left and right sides in landscape mode, and there are no clips at all on the top edge. Ostensibly these were left out in order to keep from blocking access to the SIM/SDcard port.
I would rather that they blocked up the port and used clamps around all of the edges. It might be a bit more difficult to put the case on or take it off, but it would have resulted in a much more solid, rigid design.
In spite of these minor flaws, this is the best case for the Xoom I have seen so far. I am still awaiting the release of the Otterbox Defender for Xoom to compare; but if it never came out, I feel that my tablet would still be well-protected with the Incipio case.