Posted on: January 7, 2011 Posted by: Jesse_Hayges Comments: 0

A little while back, maybe a month or so, north east Ohio was hit by it’s second wave of Snowmagedon. During that I time, I had been undergoing talks with a nice woman from ZeroChroma’s media department. We had been working on getting me a sample iPad case to test out and do a review for it. I eagerly waited with much anticipation to see what this new case would offer me. After quite some time being stuck with the Apple official case for the iPad, I was now ready to move onto bigger and better things.

The Vario case for the iPad promised two really big things that I was looking forward to. The first of which was an integrated stand for both viewing and typing on the iPad, and the second was the sweet release from the horrible clutches of that damned folio flap that comes on the Apple official case. I had spent my winter holiday season window shopping for a new case, and many caught my eye, but I always came back to the same design, the hard plastic shell that just snaps on the back of the product. My patience was drawing thin, not with the lady who was to send me the case because she was being all sorts of sweet and helpful, but there was a mix up with Fed Ex and I wanted my new case. Today my prayers were answered, and as what almost seemed like a reward for my patience, I also received a bonus case for the iPhone 4 as well in the Fed Ex box. The Teatro iPhone 4 case mimics the Vario iPad case in design, having a rotating section that allows for a multitude of viewing angles for your iPhone or iPad, as well as providing some extra cool features as well.

After the usual struggle that one goes through to open shipping boxes, I quickly and with much glee stripped my iPad of it’s faux suede enclosure and snapped it firmly into the Vario shell. It was a match made in heaven. I nervously clicked the rotating stand to it’s various different angles and found the click to be intoxicating. If you have ever played with transformers as a kid, like I did, you probably also have an almost perverse love of a good click sound.
I put the case into landscape mode, and set the stand for typing. At first I have to admit, I thought the designers were foolish and stupid, absolutely bonkers, to put the stand portion of the case as far off center as they did. I predicted much wobbling and thumping as I typed, but to my amazement, there was not one bit of wobble.

No extra thumping noises could be heard as I typed away madly. If you ever have the misfortune of seeing me type, it’s like a baby whose been handed a square peg, a round hole, and his daddy’s hammer. It’s loud, full of insensitive clacking of fingers meeting keys (or screen in this case), and it’s not a pretty sight. However, the more I typed, the more I found it to be just the right amount of give and firmness that I would come to expect from a stand that claimed it was suited for typing. I also own a metal compass stand made by twelve south that is my sort of benchmark for sturdiness. The twelve south stand, being made of aluminum, is so hefty in the hand it feels like it should be included as a possible choice of weapons in the next re- imagining of the clue board game.
However, for all of it’s sturdiness, and all of it’s heft, the compass wobbles when I type at full speed. So, when I gave it the full brunt of my brute force data entry, and the Vario case did not wobble, I was impressed.

Next thing I decided to do was test it’s claim of being easily flipped over to protect the glass side during transit. The word “easy” is probably the wrong word to use here though. Do not mistake my meaning, it is by no measure a difficult or hard task, it just requires a little muscle. With a little extra applied force at each corner, you simply place your thumbs against the edge of the case and bend them back away from your iPad and they in turn release their firm grip. I use the word firm here because I want you all to know that your iPad is very secure in this case, it won’t slip out – ever. Once you have the case off of the iPad, just do as the package suggests, flip the iPad and reattach. They very cleverly cut out a section for the volume rocker and mute switch on both sides so you can turn your music up and down if you plan on listening to music while the case is on the glass side.

After some amazement and delight of playing with the iPad case I decided it was time to play with it’s littler brother, the Teatro case for my iPhone 4. This case also possesses the same rotating stand and holes for a wrist strap or cell phone charm. I decided to watch some YouTube. The iPhone version of this case didn’t give nearly as satisfying a click as the bigger iPad version, but it was still nice to hear anyway. The rotating stand was easy to put at three or four optimal viewing angles for where I was sitting, and various others that would be better in different situations, I even found that this stand stood out in a manner that others often fail at. This stand could steadily and sturdily sit up in portrait mode for a FaceTime call. I really didn’t have anyone I could FaceTime with at that time of day, so I just used it to look at myself via the front facing camera. After deciding I needed to brush my hair badly, I examined the case further by playing a game, and texting someone. Both of these activities were not hindered in the slightest by the new case. I was in love. It even has an indentation right where my finger often wishes to settle while making a phone call. My old nokia phone, WAAAY back when, had the same thing but it was on a glued on piece of rubber. Needless to say, after the glue wore down and the rubber pad fell off, my finger didn’t feel so comfy there anymore. This case, however, won’t suffer the same fate as I am proud to report.
I turned my attention back to the iPad case and did a number of other tasks. I watched a quick video, painted a quick section of a painting I’m working on, and I attempted to write some hand written notes with my stylus. Each of these tasks were done with ease and stability. The last of that list did wobble a little, but in all fairness that might have just been my table, because I was very close to the rounded edges of my very cluttered dining room table. I spent the rest of the day doing things like using an IM client to talk with some friends, and do some web browsing, and found the typing angles available to me to be much better than the only ONE angle I could get out of the Apple official case, and the very same ONE angle that I could get out of my compass stand. At the end of the day I found both cases to out perform my expectations.

So, before I deliver my final verdict here I want to say something about the cost of the iPad case. Retailing at $69.99, the Vario case doesn’t come cheap. However, I did some thinking. Say you go out and buy a case, almost any case is going to run you at best $30 dollars. Depending on the case, you may or you may not get a really reliable option for typing and viewing angles, and if you do, chances are you will only get one or maybe two angles for each orientation. Lets go even one further and say you spend some extra money like I did originally to get a separate stand for typing and viewing. Depending on what you buy, you are again stuck with a separate object that costs another $30 dollars, and also probably only possesses one or two angles for each operation. So, what did that get you? $60 plus tax in the hole and only two angles for your iPad, and you now might have to go out and spend another $15 dollars for a small case to conveniently carry both of those things around with you. When all is said and done I feel the quality of the case, and its functionality both warrant it’s price tag. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, but the rotating stand also doubles as a handle for when you want to stand up and do work on the bus or wherever else you would want to comfortably hold your iPad single handedly without having to break your wrist.

One draw back that my significant other had issue with is that this case doesn’t have either a built in screen protector, or a folio like design that folds over to protect both sides at once. I can agree that someone may want that sort of case, but if you do there are a wide variety of them out there, just made for that purpose. I am satisfied with the flip and reattach feature, and I’m also happy to NOT have that damn folio flap getting in my way. However, the case almost appears to be designed in such a way that they could sell a separate, and hopefully cheap, snap on face plate for full 360 degree protection. So, maybe that is in the works. Sure it might be a pain to have a separate faceplate to keep track of but if you really want the added protection, I’m sure you’d find the minor hassle less annoying than a broken screen. I give both cases a perfect score, a 10 of 10.

Product receives a score of 10 on a 10 point scale.

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