Hi everyone Aaron here for Zollotech and
many of you have been asking me lately if apple cases are worth it and how they hold
up whether you should get a silicone apple case or a leather apple case since i generally cover
every single time they come out with new colors so i wanted to make a video going back over seven
years worth of cases and show you exactly how they hold up from the time i used to use a case full
time to now where i don’t use a case full time i still have family members that use them full
time and durability test them for me so i wanted to show you how they hold up and there’s very
different results depending on who’s using them now the first thing is my first official apple
case goes back to the ipod or the regular ipod or ipad classic as you call it now this is my
fourth generation ipod it has some scratches on it and you can see that it has been heavily used it’s
a 40 gigabyte ipod and it still works although the battery is dead it does still work and still has
songs on it from many years ago they offered an official case at that time that looks like this
it’s sort of a nylon material has elastic on the sides you can see it’s this is actually glue it’s
not anything i got on here this is glue that’s come unstuck and it still works to this day you’ll
see it’s apple and it says assembled in china and so it’s got a clip on the back it’s held up
actually pretty well given its age it’s mostly in storage now but i keep my ipod in it to keep
it safe and it’s held up fairly well so this is my oldest and first personal apple device i did
have a 933 ibook before this that was my wife’s but i wanted to show you what i used now i have
an iphone 5 here and back when the iphone 5 and 5s were out these were some of the first apple
cases this is a leather apple case it was in blue and you can see it’s an official one here if
you can get close enough here you’ll see it says designed by apple in california and this one has
meant been or was meant to be patinaed like this after use this is one i used for quite some time
and it wears like this on purpose so it gets a patina on it whether you like it or not is another
question this may or may not be to your taste so this is my oldest apple case that’s worn out
like this as is this red one as well so you can see these side by side now i do have one that
i didn’t use specifically that was eventually handed down to one of my kids and they even put a
sticker on the back and so if i peel this sticker back a little bit you can see that there’s the
apple logo and it’s really worn in this was put in jeans pockets it wore quite a bit around the
outside edge however it held up well it didn’t break or anything although it’s a little bit
weak around the headphone jack it’s held up well one case that did not hold up so well around the
same arrow was the iphone 5c case now after i used this full time my daughter did and you can see the
case on the bottom it’s cracked on the bottom the port where the lightning connector is part of it
is missing it’s cracked and it’s just from regular everyday use so this was from normal everyday
use this was an official apple case they had a microfiber lining and it’s kind of just old and
broken at this point but it did work so it’s okay it still has this grippy feel to it now when
we move on to cases a little bit later that go with the iphone 8 or the 7 era this is where they
started to be less durable at least maybe by the design as you can see on the bottom they’re worn
out completely this looks like a dog chewed it but we don’t have animals and as you can see here it’s
just from being put in and out of a jeans pocket regularly again this is one my daughter used for
some reason she’s quite hard on these silicone cases so you can see it even cracked at some point
so depending on the one they just broke apart even the silent switch these are a pretty rough example
but i wanted to share them with you to show you what it was like and here’s the iphone 8 and the
last case that was used with it you can see it has a screen protector on the phone but here is
the case and they always seem to break down here my wife who is especially careful with her phone
had the same experience so if i set these aside the iphone 8 style cases will set those aside and
bring in the iphone 10 style cases as you can see these are in much better shape and these are ones
my wife used down at the bottom they still seem to rip over time now i’ve had mild success bringing
these to apple and having them replace them under warranty sometimes they’ll replace them sometimes
they won’t and it just depends who you get but sometimes they’ll say yep that’s under warranty
if your phone has apple care will replace that for you with the same one and sometimes they
do that more recently it seems like they do that less and less but you can see here’s another
yellow one it has wear down at the bottom she’s not particularly hard on these cases but they do
seem to have this issue and that moves over to the leather version of the same case you’ll see it has
a nice patina on it you may or may not like this the buttons have held up well for the iphone 10
this is one i used for quite some time as well and then was handed off to my daughter and again
the bottom seems to have held up much better than the silicone cases over time the buttons still
work they’re metal buttons they function properly but it has a nice patina on it and you may or
may not like this but it reminds me of maybe a leather baseball glove for example so it has that
sort of wear on it that a lot of people like and sort of like this look overall and so those are
the iphone 10 cases now when we get to the iphone 10r we had a clear case available i have reviews
about this and the only complaint i have about this is if you take it on and off a lot you get
some cracks down at the bottom this seems to be very common on these cases so if you try to remove
it for example this is the official clear apple case you’ll see that it has some cracks down at
the bottom and there’s some scuffs and cracks along the side it’s held up okay and i’m the
only one that’s used this and put this on and off and this has barely been used this is maybe
used for a total of a month or two at a time and the case just from taking it on and off
seemed to have cracked so you can see this here it didn’t yellow which is nice being
that it’s years old but it did crack so down here at the bottom which seems to be the
problematic area for most people so i wanted to share all of those cases and then move on to
the most recent of the iphone 12 style cases and i have all of them here some used more than
others so the clear case hasn’t yellowed still although it’s a few months old i don’t expect
that and even being open at the bottom hasn’t cracked so far putting them on and off so that’s a
good thing with these cases so we’ll just put that here for now and then here are ones that were used
not by me but by my family and so my wife uses the silicone cases she does not like the leather
cases and one thing she noticed right away is that the bottom holds up much better there’s less
wear on them they don’t show any sort of marks and they seem to hold up really well and i know
a lot of you have questions about magsafe as well so i’ll talk about that in a moment a moment
with these cases they’re magsafe cases and they don’t seem to leave marks on the silicone cases
so much that you jump you just can’t wipe off but they do leave marks on the leather cases
so let me show you that now the leather case here this again was my daughter’s this is put
in and out of jeans pockets and you’ll see that it’s got sort of wear already on it i’m not sure
how she’s so hard on it whether she dropped it but she sort of durability test these cases
for me as you can see the wear all around it she’s fairly careful with her phone even though
it doesn’t look like it this is mostly from being in a jean’s pocket and then occasionally
brushing against different surfaces so she keeps it in her back pocket and the buttons
you can see have held up well however i’m not sure you can see this but at this angle there’s
a ring from magsafe she regularly uses it and it will leave an indentation in the leather so
if that’s a problem for you you don’t want to use one of the magsafe connectors because it will
leave that indentation in the leather permanently so it’s just sort of the pliability or the way
it squishes down that leaves that ring it’s not a problem for me since it’s centered around the
apple logo but for some people it may bother you and if it does of course you want to skip this
case so these seem to hold up really well even in the harshest conditions where i showed you
some of these silicone ones before and they’re doing okay this one is mine where it’s put in a
bag and you’ll see it has press marks from the bag itself it will sort of patina just like all of
the older ones however the iphone 12 series seeing that they have plastic around the outside ring
of the cameras they seem to hold up really well so it’s holding up well with no issues whatsoever
for me now one honorable mention i wanted to mention since i’ve had this phone for a long time
and it’s held up really well this is actually a dbrand skin from years ago this is my iphone
6 plus and not 6s plus 6 plus and this was a dbrand skin they offered years ago and they’re not
a sponsor of this channel but you’ll see it wore down here just like the phone would if you set it
down but to be fair it’s actually stuck on here quite well it’s worn away here a little bit but
given the age of the phone and this was regular regularly used at the time by me used every day
with the skin on the entire year that i used it for the most part other than in a few videos where
i removed it and put one back on this has held up really really well no complaints with the skin so
if you like skins and you’re not too worried about the the cases themselves this might be a way
for you to go but i just thought i’d mention that since i did enjoy using that at the time but
now i really like the leather and silicone cases now my main complaint with the silicone cases
is how well they stick or how well they grip this is a problem only if you wear jeans that are
tight or you have pockets that are very tight the problem is is they stick too well and you they
sort of pick up some lint not as bad as some other cases but they do pick up some lint they’re
fairly grippy and they’re hard to take out of your pocket sometimes however if you just throw this
into maybe a purse or maybe you have a backpack these will be fine but i recommend the leather
cases generally for the little extra money since they do have metal buttons all the
way around and they just feel nicer overall however if you don’t like leather and you don’t
want to use them the silicone cases work fine and the newer ones definitely hold up better than
the old ones did the leather cases in the past i would highly recommend as compared to silicone for
example such as this one that’s seven plus years old or so and is held up just fine so overall i
recommend either the clear case or the leather case over time but let me know which one you would
pick in the comments below and hopefully this gives you an idea of their durability over time if
there’s anything else you want to know about these specifically let me know in the comments below now
if you’d like to get your hands on the wallpaper that’s on my iphone 12 pro max of course i’ll
link that in the description like i normally do and if you haven’t subscribed already
please subscribe and if you enjoyed the video please give it a like as always thanks for
watching this is Aaron i’ll see you next time
