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