It's one of the great ironies in modern technology: progress keeps rushing us towards smaller and thinner, lighter and more flexible, but every step in that direction makes our gizmos more fragile. Think about your friends with smartphones. How many live with a cracked or shattered screen because they can't afford to replace it? How many laptops have defects because they've slipped off a desk or someone's put too much weight on it when closed?
The Apple iPad is a beautiful example of this conundrum. The latest iPad 2 is an amazing feat of engineering, so thin and light that it's almost unbelievable that it can be so powerful with that footprint.
But drop it even two feet from a table onto a tile or concrete floor and you'll be heading to the Apple Store for a replacement, grumbling all the way.
Apple makes an iPad case but its Smart Cover is more about protecting the glass surface than protecting the entire device from any sort of fall, which is a problem. As much as I want to tote around my iPad without any protective cover at all, it's a risky business.
Fortunately for us iPad owners, third part manufacturing companies have stepped up and offer a wide variety of cases, ranging from the super thin to cases that'll double or triple the thickness of the iPad.
Smack in the center of this continuum is the new Summit case from iFrogz. You might know iFrogz from its successful line of headphones and earbuds but the company also makes lots of cases for computer gear, ranging from iPhone cases to a number of iPad 1 and iPad 2 solutions.
The Summit case is interesting because it's a hybrid: there's a hard plastic shell that clips onto the back of the iPad and a thin leather folding front cover that has the necessary magnetic magic to make the case "smart" (i.e. the iPad 2 will automatically turn on when you lift the cover off the screen, and go into sleep mode when you cover it) and folds back to make a stand that works at a variety of viewing angles.
Here's a pic:
I really like this case and if you're constantly toting your iPad around without the benefit of a computer case, this could be a smart option for you, offering up the flexibility of a smart cover along with the protection of a hard plastic shell.
It is expensive, though, at $59.99, but then again, if you have a 65GB 3G iPad 2, how much would it cost to replace it if some clumsy oaf at the café bumped it onto the floor tomorrow afternoon?
More information: iFrogz Summit iPad 2 Case
Disclaimer: iFrogz sent us a Summit iPad case to test out. We like it!
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