PRODUCT REVIEW
The Case Against Case-Mate Clear Armor for iPhone

Here's a picture of Case-mate's Clear Armor.

All three products offer pretty much the same pitch -- their product is fabricated from high-grade protective film originally designed to protect Apache helicopter blades from sand damage in Desert Storm and/or to protect the fronts of cars from stones and other abrasive elements. If the film is not exactly the same in all three products, it's very, very similar.

And all three products are applied the same way: you apply the protective film by first spraying it with the included application solution and then applying it to your iPhone and pushing any air bubbles out with the included plastic card or squeegee.

Might Make Casing Troublesome

Unlike most traditional cases, you don't have to remove any of these products to dock your iPhone. That's the good news. The bad news is that once you apply a film product to your iPhone, you phone will no longer work very well with many traditional cases because the film is much less slippery than a naked iPhone. On the other hand, this also makes it somewhat less likely the iPhone will slip from your grip. Anyway, if you want to use one of these three film products with a traditional case, make sure you try inserting and removing the film-protected iPhone a few times before you commit to the case. For what it's worth, I've had the best luck using my invisibleSHIELD-protected iPhone with holster-style cases like the ones made by Belkin (see review here) or Griffin Technology (see reveiw here).

So, which one is "better?" Since the actual film material used for all three products is so similar, your choice should be made based on other factors such as: ease of application, number of applications per package, price, and warranty.

Frustrating Application

Clear Armor by Case-mate was by far the most difficult to apply. To begin with, the film was the most difficult of the three to remove from its backing paper. And the intricate cutouts at the corners made it difficult to press them into place long enough for the film to dry. Finally, it was more difficult to remove the cutouts for the speaker and camera than it was for the other products.

Clear Armor, like BodyGardz, includes two complete sets of skins in each package, which is nice. And at US$19.99 it's the least expensive of the three.

Alas, Case-mate's 90-day limited warranty is the weakest of the three -- both InvisibleSHIELD and BodyGuardz* offer a lifetime replacement guarantee.

*Note that when I originally reviewed BodyGuardz, I dinged them for not offering a lifetime warranty like InvisibleSHIELD. I'm happy to report that BodyGuardz must have taken our review to heart and now offers a lifetime replacement guarantee like InvisibleSHIELD.

To make things easier for you, I put together a little table comparing the three products in the aforementioned categories. Here's how they stacked up:

I've purchased several InvisibleSHIELD products for my wife and kids as well as myself and have always been quite satisfied with them. That said, I recently ordered an InvisibleSHIELD for my iPhone 3G . At the time, I didn't know that BodyGuardz now includes a lifetime replacement warranty. So, even though the BodyGuardz was slightly more difficult to apply, since it comes with two skins for the same price as one InvisibleSHIELD, and both products come with lifetime replacement warranties, I will almost certainly order a BodyGuardz next time.

The Bottom Line

Unfortunately, Clear Armor is more difficult to apply than the other two products and is the only product that doesn't offer a lifetime replacement guarantee.

In my opinion, you'd be better off with either of the other products.