Original Stix - iPhone 5s Phone Case

[Gummer12 134]

First I'd like to thank Terry from Original Stix for giving me the opportunity to review their Orginal Stix iPhone 5s case. The case itself without the stick pieces is really lightweight, but that does not mean it isn't protective. It is a little thicker than the cases that I normally prefer, but that is to accommodate the added pieces of, in my case, Vapor APX2. Initially putting the phone into the case was a bit of a chore and took quite a bit of effort. But that's a good thing in my opinion because it means that it's going to hold to the phone nice and securely. The only movement I found were the actual stick pieces themselves had a little play to them. I mentioned this to Terry, and he suggested that I try putting a strip of hockey tape onto the back sides of the pieces. I also mentioned that I was worried about them pieces scratching my phone from them moving around a little, but he reassured me that they coat the back of every piece with a rubber coating. After a couple weeks I looked, and surely enough, there were no scratches. One of the things that I have found where other cases have failed, was heat dispersion after playing games for a prolonged period. Other cases get hot to the touch, and over time become soft and then stretched out and would no longer hold tight to the phone as they have from day one. I even had one clear case turn into a smoked colored case. But after playing many hours of games, the case or stick pieces were hot to the touch, and still held tight as the day I installed it. As I mentioned before, the case is thicker than what I am used to, but by no means was it uncomfortable to use my phone with or made me feel like I was holding a brick in my hand. I think those who are interested in getting one, and are used to having something like an otterbox or something big like those will have absolutely no issues with this case, and will even find it lighter than those monster cases. All of the side buttons are pretty easy to get to, unless you have some fat sausage fingers like mine, then the volume buttons could require a little more focused effort to operate, but not terribly annoying. I came up with a couple ideas that I gave to Terry that he said they're already working on for their next updated version, and I also thought up of another recently that I think would be a great touch to their cases to give it an even deeper hockey feel. Overall I think this case is a great middle of road case that has a good balance of lightweight, and protection, and gives the owner a unique way of displaying their love for not only the game of hockey, but hockey equipment as well.