Case Mate Gelli Thermoplastic iPad Case Review
Produced by Case Mate and sold by CleverKit.com, the Gelli is a basic skin case available in one of six colours, and touted as being lighter, softer and more resilient than silicone and rubber cases.
The 6 colours available are Grey, Red, Pink, Yellow, Green and Blue. They’re all bold and quite striking, but semi-transparent allowing the fact you’re holding an iPad to show through. I took a look at the Blue one, with a “kaleidoscopic” pattern that consists of a grid of triangles and squares with solid fills or scan-lines. It looks reasonably good, but isn’t a style I would personally pick out, simply because it’s a little too noisy and detailed to be what I would consider a good stylistic fit for the iPad. For those who want their devices to look a bit different, though, the choice of colours is good and the pattern adds that little extra interest to the mix.
The Gelli is definitely lighter and more flexible than the only silicone case I have to hand, the Proporta Mizu Shell, however it demonstrates some rough injection moulding lines, and clear points where the case has been cut from its sprue. The cutouts in the Gelli, however, are far cleaner than those on the Mizu Shell and there’s also a cut-out for the volume rocker, instead of the press-able area of case that the Mizi Shell touts.
Similarly, there’s a cut-out for the power button. This can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your preference, personally I often find that it’s harder to press these quite small buttons through a cut-out in a case, and prefer having an area of the case which transfers the force of a press to the relevant button. The Mizu Shell demonstrates this both on the power button and volume rocker, but often these rubber/silicone cases are quite firm, making it slightly harder to press the buttons.
When all is said and done, the Gelli edges out the Proporta Mizu Shell slightly with its translucency, but massively fails to compete on price, being a whole £10 more expensive than the Proporta alternative. Ultimately, it all boils down to whether or not your personal favourite colour (if it’s available), the pattern, the translucency and the slightly better material with which the Gelli is made is worth the £10 premium. To be fair, it’s a tough call to make. If you like what you see, you can pick one up for £34.99 at CleverKit.com
