Arguably the best case for the Treo 700 w/wx, the Seidio Crystal Case provides protection that is comfortable, stylish and functional.

The Crystal Case is uniquely designed for the Treo. It has a small form factor at only 19mm thick. The Seidio case keeps your phone blemish free by protecting vital areas while still allowing access to the SD card slot, headphone jack, camera, speaker phone, screen and all buttons.

Installation is easy. The Crystal Case just snaps onto the front and back of the phone. Installation took me around 5 seconds. It's equally easy to take the case off. There is a reset hole pre-drilled into the case that can be used with the Seidio battery cover with reset hole, allowing for fast and easy soft resets without a need to remove the case or battery cover. (Side note: you can forgo buying the Seidio battery cover. That will be covered at the end of this review.) Treo 700 owners know how much of a pain in the neck it can be to reset the device without such a hole.

The Seidio Crystal Case is excellent for showing off your device, because you hardly notice that it is there. Some of the cases available for the Treo are very nice. The Crystal Case is the only one that retains the factory beauty of the phone. One of my major concerns with the Seidio case is that it would add unwanted weight to the phone. Treo owners be honest, this phone is not a Razr or Motorola Q. While talking on the phone there is no considerable bulk added to the Treo. The only fault I can see aesthetically with the case is that it isn’t available in different tints. A nice blue tint to the case would be interesting but then again that is a user preference.

There are some drawbacks to the case. First, if you use a dock of any sort (other than Seidio's Innodock), you will have to remove the case to insert the Treo. The same is true if you use a powered dock for the automobile. The second drawback is that the Crystal Case does not fit into most leather cases. I have found that typically the latch on the leather case does not close all the way around the hard crystal shell.

After using the case for a few days, I pondered whether it would fly off the phone if dropped. Not willing too purposefully drop my Treo, however, I had to rely on the Gods or so called to intervene. After mounting my Treo in the generic windshield mount of my vehicle, upon hitting a rather nasty pothole, the device flew out of the holster, hit the center console and shot into the passenger seat. The Crystal Case was intact, and I could not find a scratch or dent on my Treo.

A case that provides full protection for my Treo that costs less than 4% of the retail price of the Treo: priceless.

For those who use back covers with reset holes, the Crystal Case comes with a hole for resetting without removing the device. Battery covers with reset holes retail for $8.99. I thought to myself, since the Crystal Case has the reset hole already, why not drill a reset hole in the factory battery cover myself?

The Crystal case provides a template for where you should drill. Install the case and take a Sharpie marker and denote where the reset hole is located on the battery case. Take the Crystal case and battery cover off. Where you marked the hole with a Sharpie marker, drill a hole. You might have to go back and re-drill to make the opening large enough for the stylus. After the opening is large enough to fit the stylus, reinstall the battery cover and Crystal case, and you are done. Finally, give yourself a pat on the back because you saved yourself $8.

(If you mess up, don’t fret. Battery covers are readily available from mytreo.net/store.)

Related Links

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