A little while later, the bumper dropped to something more reasonable, less than 1/4 of the price it was originally going for! Then I figured, “What the hell, why not? It’s only $6.99 now.”
And then… What turned out to be the best Nexus 5 bumper case was on its way.
“We have to go back!!”
So, it’s kind of funny that with all of these other bumper cases out for the Nexus 5 (I’ve bought a bunch and only put a review up for one other bumper as the rest just plain sucked), that my favorite would turn out to be not a new design, but an old design that was made for the Nexus 4! I guess that old saying of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” really holds true here. I will say it. This replica Nexus 4 bumper case, is the best bumper case you will find for the Nexus 5. Take an old design, stretch it out a bit, slap it on the Nexus 5, WIN!
Materials and Build Quality:
This bumper case is made of a two piece construction. The black portion is a very flexible yet hard (dense not rigid) TPU. It’s durable, and from the rather massive tumble my phone took after being knocked out of my hand, offers great drop protection too! The gray/silver portion is a flexible hard plastic that seems to have just as much bend to it as the TPU portion. Both together absorb impacts pretty well and from the looks of it, despite landing and bouncing around on pavement, only scuffed up the silver finish on the hard plastic with no other visible damage whatsoever to the case, and more importantly, the phone is still pristine! You can think of this two piece construction along the lines of other hard and soft combo cases like the Spigen Neo Hybrid, minus the back.
The black TPU portion also has a texture with a ton of little indentations for a nice feel. Your fingers will like it. It adds a lot of grip and gives it an overall nicer look than just having the standard flat TPU. The TPU is also a matte finish, so there won’t be any visible fingerprints on the bumper. This is true for the hard plastic as well. Since it isn’t a shiny finish, and sticks to gray/silver, fingerprints don’t show.
Proper buttons are such a welcome addition!!
Most cases just have buttons that are part of the mold or holes that are cut out.
With regards to the first type, when the button is just a part of the mold, most times the tactile feedback is almost nonexistent. You don’t know if you’ve pressed anything, or the button double presses, or sometimes it just doesn’t work at all… When it is just a cut out hole, unless it is a thin case, a lot of the times the proportions become out of whack and it feels like you have to dig your finger in to press the button, or sometimes you miss the location completely. Neither is a problem with this bumper case! The buttons here are real additional buttons inserted in the plastic frame!!
The feels baby, the feels!
There is a nice tactile feedback. The buttons are loose but not giggly/rattle loose. And the most important part, when you press the button, it feels like a damn button! It clicks when it’s supposed to click, and you know it clicks. It works and feels just the way it should. You’d be surprised how so many case manufacturers get this wrong with their cases...
Fit and Feel in Hand:
The bumper fits the phone like a glove. There are no gaps, it isn’t loose, and the phone doesn’t move around in the case. It fits perfectly and feels solid in the hand. That’s not to say that it’s so tight that you can’t take it off if you needed to. It does take a bit of wiggling, but it does come off without too much difficulty. All you need to do is stretch out a corner first, pop out the corner of the phone, and then the rest slips right out, no problems.
The bumper does add a bit of girth to the sides, top, and bottom of the phone. This is unavoidable of course, as all cases (unless it’s a snap on hardcase) will have to add some bulk. Despite it adding a bit to the width, the phone still feels good in the hand and doesn’t feel very bulky. This is because there is no back to the case, so the phone still feels thin in the hand even though it’s wider! So unlike other cases that can make it seem like you have a brick in your hand instead of a phone because of both extra width and thickness, this one still feels good. You can still feel the slight rounded back of the Nexus 5 and the overall profile is still pretty thin.
The part that can be a bit annoying, and I guess this goes for a lot of cases out there, is the headphone cutout. The case was designed to only accommodate thin earbud style headphones with the thin input jack. This tends to happen with a lot of cases, and while it kind of sucks, it’s not a deal breaker. I guess they assume most people will just use earbuds, but I like using a proper set of headphones sometimes and it would have been nice to have a bigger hole (all case manufacturers should take this into consideration).
I did resort to buying an extension adapter cable that is thin and fits in the hole. Then I just plug my headphones into the adapter cable and all is well. I wish I didn’t have to do that though, but it isn’t too much of a hassle.
Protection:
Well of course being a bumper case it has to you know... protect from bumps and such. So does it fare well? I did mention earlier that the phone was knocked out of my hand and took a big fall and tumbled along the pavement. The bumper performed like a champ! The phone is still perfect, and there is very minimal damage done to the case, just scuffed paint. There are no dents, cracked plastic, or broken off pieces of TPU; the case is still pretty much in tip top shape. So in terms of drop protection, it’s all good!
There is a nice lip over the front of the phone for those of you who do the phone face down on a table thing. It is also good to note that the lip accommodates tempered glass screen protectors very well (and I assume plastic ones as well). You can see from the pic above that the lip perfectly presses against all sides of the glass screen protector but doesn’t lift it in any way. So for those of you who want additional protection for your screen, you won’t have any problems with this case messing with your screen protector. The lip, while high, doesn’t impede swiping at all. You can still easily swipe your fingers from the sides and screen feedback isn’t affected.
Another concern is the lift on the back. Being a bumper case, people may think the back still scrapes against the table, or that the camera might still scratch against things. Well you don’t have to worry. The top lip of the case lifts the phone up high enough that there is a nice gap between the phone and the table. You can see in the photos below how the top lip of the bumper case gives it a nice space. You can even see the camera lens hovering over the table. So don’t worry, the lens is lifted and the back of the phone won’t get scratches either. You may think that the sides help in lifting the phone, but the gap between the phone and the table is created entirely from the top and bottom lips of the bumper only.
In the last pic you can see better the nice lip at the top which is higher than the camera, the nice bottom lip as well, and the sides keeping a thin profile to keep the phone feeling slim overall.
How to remove the bumper:
Some people were having a bit of difficulty removing the bumper case from the phone as it is a nice and snug fit. So here is a video demo of what I do when I take it off.
i bought this case, the only problems ive been having is unless its the OEM it might fall out easily or not even fit at all. and this one happened the other day, i was taking the case off to clean the phone and realized it was tougher than expected. after the case was finally removed i realized the back panel had unhinged itself and i could see the internals of the phone, a quick snap pushed it back together but since then i have to be extra careful removing it for fear that it'll rip the back plate off completely. i purchased it from amazon.