Introduction

A month ago, we reviewed the Incase Designs Leather Sleeve for the Apple iPod. The sleeve proved to be a solid, well designed, and inexpensive case for the popular digital music player. Along with the Sleeve, Incase also sent us the Leather Folio for the iPod. The Folio is described as providing "wrap around protection and form fitting design". So, how would this case stack up against the Sleeve? Today we're going to take a look at the Leather Folio and see if deserves consideration by anyone looking for an iPod case.

Packaging

The Incase Designs Leather Folio comes in the following packaging:

Inside, you'll find some marketing material and the case itself:

Specifications

Here are the basic features and specifications for the Leather Folio:

• Wrap-around protection
• Nappa leather
• Quick access functionality
• Folio design with ear phone access
• Suede non-scratch lining
• Belt or strap attachment
• Firewire protection plug

Overview

Let's now spend some time looking at the case design. Here's a picture of the front of the case.

The front has a small peg/plug on the upper left hand corner where the rear cover latches on to (providing that wrap around protection).

Ironically - the front of the case does not correspond to the front of the Apple iPod. The back of the Leather Folio is actually the front of the Apple iPod. The back also has a belt clip for anyone wishing to take the iPod with them.

Here's a picture of the top of the case. The headphone jack is clearly available although the control lock is not accessible.

Here are pictures of the side of the case - notice that the sides are stretchable:

To get into the guts of the case, remove the leather strap from the plug on the front.

On the inside, the Leather Folio looks very similar to the Leather Sleeve that we reviewed last month. There is a clear plastic cover protecting the LCD screen while the button and wheel (or click wheel) are fully exposed for usage. As with the Sleeve, the plastic cover is easily scratched but that's better than scratching the iPod's expensive surface.

On the bottom of the inside, you'll see a flap called the Firewire protection plug. This flap is meant to plug the dock connector port at the bottom of the iPod thereby preventing dust from getting inside. Although this is an excellent idea, we found that the flap often doesn't stay put inside the dock connector port.

Usage

The Leather Folio looks good in principle but there are some oddities in the design which really stand out after some usage. You slide the iPod inside after you open the wrap around cover. The fit is a bit snug but will loosen up over time. Since it is made of leather, the case will eventually feel right at home around your iPod.

First the positive - the case does a good job at protecting the iPod from regular everyday wear and tear. However like the Leather Sleeve, the Folio won't protect the corners of the iPod so if you drop the case at an angle, you'll likely scratch the surface. Another nice thing - the inner case lining doesn't scratch the iPod's surface. This is important since you'll need to remove the iPod if you ever want to dock the iPod with the Dock Connector.

The Nappa Leather on the Incase Folio is well manufactured and provides ample protection for the Apple iPod. The leather stitching is also pretty good although we did notice some loose threads here and there - nothing to really worry about.

And now . for the not so good. The case has an unorthodox design where if you wanted access to the iPod, you'll need to flip the case open from the backside. As we mentioned earlier, the front of the iPod faces the back of the case. Thus the belt clip is on the same side as the front of the Apple iPod. This of course means that if you wanted to reach the front of the iPod to control features, you'll need to remove the iPod from your belt and then flip open the case to get inside. It would have made more sense for the flip cover to flip from the front of the case.

Update (Sept. 23rd, 2004) : A reader (LimeLite) pointed out the following: "I just wanted to explain to you the reason that the case flips out the way that it does. The idea is to be able to keep the case clipped to your belt at all times. It folds open in the manner to you can look down and actually see the screen and the buttons. Try opening it with the case clipped to your belt and you'll see what I mean. With other belt clip cases, sure, you can control it, but you can't see it, so if you wanted to search for a particular song, you'd have to it off of your belt and bring it up to you to see it properly. The folio design is intended to keep you from having to remove the case at all."
This is a good point which we overlooked during our review and should be considered when you're looking at this product. Thanks for the user comments folks!

We're also not entirely crazy about the peg latch system that the cover uses. A push button would have been a better solution to keep the cover in place around the iPod. You often have to pull on the cover to get the hole to go over the peg which is a pain in the beginning. We're sure that after some usage, the leather will stretch and the process of closing the case will be easier. However, a push button would have been far easier to work with. At the end of the day, we found ourselves constantly fumbling around with the case which became more of a hindrance than anything else.

Here are some pictures of the iPod inside the Leather Folio:

Summary

The Incase Designs Leather Folio looks good from the outside - it's made of the same high quality Nappa Leather found in the Leather Sleeve product while providing ample protection for your 10, 15, 20, 30, or 40 GB Apple iPod. There's even a cool dock connector plug which prevents dust from getting inside the iPod. However, the Folio's usefulness is hampered by some interesting design elements. We were only able to deal with the case for a few days before we wanted to rip the Folio right off. The clip belt is located in the same orientation as the front of the iPod - useful if you have the case attached to your belt but otherwise annoying if you don't use the belt clip. The peg is also a bit annoying to use - why not have a push button instead? The Folio would have been a much better case if the design was simply reversed with the belt clip actually on the back of the iPod. We can't fully recommend the Incase Folio without some modifications made to the basic design. Although we now understand (thanks to reader comments) the design elements of the Folio, we still feel that the wrap around design could have been better. We still do not fully recommend this case to everyone out there but given the fact that you can use the iPod while it's attached to your belt - this may be useful to some people constantly on the go. We definitely like the notion of having a wrap around case - it's different than many of the sliding cases that are out on the market today. However, given the choice between the Leather Sleeve and the Folio, we'll take the Sleeve. If you have any comments or questions, please post them in our forums. We'd like to thank Incase Designs for sending us the evaluation samples.

Pros:

• Wrap around protection
• High quality Nappa Protection
• Dock Connector Plug

Cons:

• Back of the case is the front of the iPod
• Closing the case is cumbersome

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