If silicone, leather or plastic cases aren’t worthy enough for your iPhone 4, how about these really snazzy looking CNC’d aluminum frame cases from Kinetic? You might recall that we reviewed a similar offering from ElementCase a few months ago. Andy wanted to love it, but it wasn’t comfortable to hold and seemed to hinder signal strength. It’s too soon to tell if these cases from Kinetic will have the same problems, but they sure look nice. Made of aluminum and sealed with Teflon, the cases are available in Black, Pink, Blue, Orange and Red with either an Acrylic or Carbon Fiber back plate. The Kinetic case is currently available for pre-order and is priced at $65-$75.
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That is a pretty sweet looking case. I like how smooth it looks. I just ordered a pink one.
@Heather Carbon Fiber or Acrylic backplate?
Wow! this thing is great. Really high quality. Super materials and feels substantial in my hand. The machine work and finish are something I would expect on a precision tool or instrument.
It is “manly”, but would appeal also to my wife who likes “nice things”
It is the case of choice for me.
@Wally Ummmmm, it’s only available for pre-order. How do you know it feel substantial in your hand?
Most of the discomfort with the ElementCase offering was the beveled edges… a corner is a corner is a corner, and unless you round it off, it’s going to be sharp. These Kinetic cases do look really smooth, so I imagine that they’d probably address the comfort issue quite nicely.
My only question is, how easy is it to hold on to? The ElementCase could get pretty slippery if my hands were at all sweaty, and unless Kinetic is doing something different (the teflon coating, perhaps?), these would have the same problem.
Four month ago when we decided to develop a machined aluminum case for the iPhone4 we spent a lot of time listening to people about what they liked and didn’t like about the iPhone. One of the common complaints was that the iPhone4 was not comfortable to hold. Through tester feedback and four months of development we came up with the case we are offering now that addresses the “a corner is a corner” complaint you and MANY of our testers have. Many of our testers said the iPhone4 felt like a regression is design because the phone did not feel nice to hold.
Regarding how easy the phone is to hold… Because our main focus was to produce a case the felt amazing to hold the Kinetic Case is contoured to fit your hand very nicely. The Kinetic Case has significantly more surface area to hold on to then other cases we have tested which should help when palms get clammy. None of our testers complained about any unsure grip with our latest case design. In the future we will also be offering a bead blasted hard anodized finish that will probably offer even more grip.
@Julie
We utilized a number of testers in developing the Kinetic Case. I assume this Wally would be the Wally that helped us during our testing.
@tim OK, that makes more sense! 😉
@Julie
Acrylic. My BF said to get carbon fiber, but I’m not sure what it looks like.
Just ordered mine, can’t wait to get it. These guys are super responsive. I emailed them with a question and they got back to me within 20 minutes. Can’t wait to get mine.
Any pics/estimated date of availability of bead blast silver version?
@ Marlon- We have been changing our website almost every day to offer more information and more pictures. Keep an eye out often for new changes.
http://kineticcase.com/index.html
The bead blasting and hard anodizing affect the part tolerances so we are currently working through that right now. Right now we do not have an ETA that we can commit to. We do offer a really nice satin silver anodized color though.
Great looking case. Not great reception. What to do?
@ Ifun4-
Please contact me at ti*@ki*********.com If you are having reception issues.
If you are assuming the case will have reception issues I encourage you to look on youtube for some of our reviews, or look around on the internet and you will find our happy customers reporting no reception issues.
Is this available in anodized silver? I am also interested for iPhone 4S.
The website http://kineticcase.com/index.html seems to be not in use anymore. does anyone know where to still get these cases.
I still am in search for one too!!! I need one! Please direct me, I’ve been searching everywhere.