Piel Frama Razr V3 Leather Case
www.PielFrama.com
Price: 50 Euros (Approx. $60)

A few weeks ago I recently upgraded my outdated cell phone to a new Motorola Razr V3 Black Edition. I have been happy with it, but I was looking for a case that would help protect it a bit better. So I thought who better to ask than our friends over at Piel Frama.

Piel Frama happened to have a black Razr case available for me to take a test drive with, and so today I am proud to present the review of the Piel Frama Razr V3 case.

As usual, the case arrived in one of Piel Frama's great little boxes, well wrapped, and ready to use. Upon opening the box, I found the case, belt clip, belt clip stud, removal tool, and caps to cover hole when stud is removed. The case is a small flap of black leather with cutouts for the front LCD and the camera on the phone.

The leather is of course of very good quality and feels great in your hands. It is the same as the other Piel Frama cases so I will not go to deeply into how great the leather is, but it truly is great. It is soft, durable, and very good looking.

Putting the Razr into the case is very simple. I found it easiest to open the phone, slide the top part of the phone into the top slot (which also has a mesh on it so you can still hear easily through the earpiece), and then slide the bottom of the phone into the bottom slot. That's it, your case is on your phone and you are ready to go!

Now before I go into details about the fit of the case, do realize that flip phones are some of the hardest devices to build cases for. The dimensions change immensely  from the open position and closed position, plus many times the phones have many complicated curves and angles to work around. Not to mention you still want the phone to be usable. So with that being said, now onto the fit of the case. The case fits perfectly around the LCD screen on the outside, and the camera on the outside, but it does tend to bow out in the back when the phone is open. This is because of the extra material that bundles up in the back when the phone is open. It is easy enough to hold it down, but sometimes it can be a bit of a nuisance. When folded closed, the case does not allow the phone to flip all the way closed, although it is very close to being all the way closed. This again is because of the phones design making it hard to attach the case to the phone without disrupting the motion of the "flip".

Another issue is that there is no cutout for the USB port on the side of the phone used for charging. This is because the pocket used to hold the bottom of the phone comes up far enough to cover the USB port. I think Piel Frama could easily fix this problem by adding a cutout to this area. In my usage, when I wanted to charge the phone I had to leave it flipped open (as then it would slide down just enough to reveal the USB port for charging).

The belt clip system I can say works great. With Piel Frama's system, you can remove the stud and replace it with a small cap (to cover the hole) so there is no stud on the back if you don't want a belt clip. The mounting stud screws on and off and is very easy to remove/replace with the included tool. They give you three of the small caps that are made out of plastic and matched to the color of your case. The caps don't screw in so I could see that you may have a chance of one falling off and I believe that's why they give you extras. That is about the only thing that could be improved upon, even if the small cap could screw in that would be better. The actual belt clip itself works great and is also color matched to the case. It has a locking mechanism so that you can simply press down on a button on the top of the belt clip and slide the case off. It is very secure and I don't think you would ever need to worry about the case coming off the belt clip.

I have been using the case personally for a few weeks and I really do like the protection and elegance it provides. But sometimes the issues of having to charge the phone with the phone flipped open, and the bit of a bulge that came from the extra material used when the phone is flipped closed. Besides those issues, I really liked the construction of the case and thought that it protected the phone very well.

Overall I would recommend this to people looking to spice up their phone a bit as well as add some protection, but I would not recommend this to people that have their phone to their ear all day long as sometimes the bulge can become annoying.

Pros:

• Great Quality Leather
• Good Protection
• Belt Clip Removable

Cons:

• Bulge of extra material when case is open
• USB Port does not have its own cutout (need to charge with the phone flipped open)
• Phone does not close all the way

Thanks to Piel Frama for the Review Sample!