Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Smartphone case advice sought.

I'm a little reluctant to put this out lest a certain regular here try to phone shame me again, but I'm on a reg'lar iPhone8..... (no lie, the guy actually asked me what kind of phone I had )

I'm safe this time, the 8 CAN'T be the most retarded iPhone out there as WalMart is still selling iPhone6 cases...

Anyways, I've been on iPhones since 2016, this is my second, lost the first.

I've always been using LifeProof cases, kinda steep at $80 but they cover the whole phone, including the camera lens and are waterproof, briefly submergible in fact. What happens after about a year tho is the lens cover gets scratched up and your photos come out foggy.

There;s a plethora of cheap phone cases out there that just snap on but do not cover the screen and/or the camera lens.

Then there's the Otterbox, about $40 and change, not waterproof, covers the screen but leaves the camera lens uncovered.

So... if you buy a phone case that leaves the camera lens bare, ain't the camera lens liable to get all scratched up, or is that glass hard enough it ain't really a problem?

Anyone got any recommendations other than a LifeProof case? I would prefer a blaze orange case, LifeProof doesn't offer that.

I figured you for a flip phone and a zip lock sandwich baggie kind of guy.



Maybe I have you confused with the guy that’s had 11 stents and thinks carp are a delicacy.

I got phone-shamed a few months ago because I “upgraded” from i5 to i7.
No $hit!

Could be worse

Don’t we have dorks on dial up, using a spare Commodore 64 to help SETI?

Nighthawk...sound off

Screw the Joneses. I'm still on 5- wish I hadn't lost my 4.... 5 takes better pics tho.

Probably upgrade to a 6 or 7 in a year or two.

And Birdie- you can get used Lifeproofs for older phones on ebay for about $35 usually. That's what I do.

I was, but I had to upgrade when I took my son and my bicycle to the UK. My other iPhone was an SE. Some high school kid has it now, or else it was tossed into the drainage ditch by the school.

Otter Defender. No better case made for impact protection, IMO. I've never scratched a camera lens on a phone, & I pop out the plastic screen protector on the Defenders - too much dirt gets behind it, rather I use a proper tempered glass screen protector, which easily fits under the defender case.

Magpul orange case. Get the correct size.

https://www.amazon.com/TJS-Tempered...aWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

Just got a new phone. Haven't dropped it yet.

I drop mine prob'ly once a week. At school I've seen ninety kazillion cracked phone screens, in fact MOST of them are cracked it looks like.

THIS

Have used both. Both have their place. Otter box for impact resistance. thicker, more flexible rubber protection. Life Proof for water/submersion protection, and for dust / particulate protection.

While I never had an iPhone crack in a LifeProof case, the Otter box definitely has better padding. However, the open hole in the Otter box screen protector for the iPhone start button is an easy access path for water (eg: in a sweaty pocket while working or exercising) and for particulate debris such as sawdust. PITA to have to pull the Otter box apart every day or two when working on the sawmill to clean the screen. Never had a problem with debris getting INSIDE of a Life Proof case.

My opinion: Otter box for casual phone usage. Life Proof for "Go anywhere. Do anything." type phone usage.

If you've gotta have waterproof then the lifeproof is the one to have. I don't need it and I don't like bulky cases so I have a spigen ultra hybrid on mine. Any decent case will have a lip that is above the camera lens so the camera doesn't touch anything when it's laid down, there isn't a need for something to cover the camera lens. Otterboxes are way too bulky, I want mine to fit comfortably in my pocket. Make sure you have a tempered glass screen protector on it, that's saved my screen a couple of times.

Cases in a brick and mortar store have huge markups, you can get a really good one off of amazon or ebay for under $20.

My initial Lifeproof years ago was fantastic; since then the quality has gone to [bleep] and the covering over the camera scratches as birdie notes. I never even made it 6 months with the newer ones ... and lifeproof replaced 3 of them.
My new phone has a pelican case, and so far (4 months) the camera covering is holding up much better. I’m not sure if they are available for the 8 ...

Specks case and a Whitestone Dome glue-on screen protector.

Thankyou all for the advice, gonna try the Pelican Marine for $36.77 delivered. Looks a lot like what I was using, the waterproof feature sold me. Didn't come in anything but black tho, which can be about as hard to find and easy to forget as camo

https://pelicanphonecases.com/colle...rine-case-for-apple-iphone-8-clear-black

*raises hand*

Magpul case with a screen protector.

Amazon has the same case priced from a third to a little less than half that price.