If you have been away or living in a cave, you will not have heard the momentous news that I have purchased a BlackBerry 9900. Ouch! As we know I was a bad person in another life and so  I had to buy the device SIM free. But, the purchase has been made now and it does not burn so much anymore, as I am more than satisfied with what the Blackberry has to offer me. Now, before things get away from me, I had to buy a case for the BlackBerry as the new shiny-white-piece flew down the corridor at university, luckily with zero damage.

The Soft Shell is one of a series of cases that BlackBerry produce for the Bold 9900. The 9900 does arrive with a rather nice and fancy leather case to match the colour of your BlackBerry, in this case, white. In addition, it has a magnetic trick-up-its-sleeve, a lot like Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad 2. Sliding the 9900 into its leather case, switches it into sleep mode automatically. A nice touch. However, as is the norm for me, somehow, having to pop my phone into a case, restricts my usage. I do not know how, or if it is some form of lazy intuition, but if I have a case that I have to put my phone ‘into’ after I have used it, I use my phone less and this detracts from my enjoyment. The brain sinks into a ‘I cannot be bothered to take it out of its case’ phase. Take in question, the iPhone. I used my iPhone 50 percent less when it ‘lived in a case’. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing to have a case after all if my brain works by this method. However, I must have bought the phone because I wanted to use it and not because I want it to live in a case and not use it. So, it was time to order a case for the BlackBerry 9900 and I did so about 3 days after purchase and it arrived this morning. I am rather fond of showing my phone design and colour so I tend to go for the ‘clear’ colour option and I followed this route for the BlackBerry as I did for the iPhone. On this occasion, I found that the case was not actually ‘clear’ but it was ‘opaque’ which is not the same thing. However, it was a perfect fit. The material is not of the ‘gel’ kind that  you see everywhere. It is made of much sturdier stuff and provides a solid grip to the 9900. My BlackBerry 9900 will no longer be seen skating down university corridors. The design of the Soft Shell from BlackBerry protects all the buttons on the 9900 by encasing them within the Shell and leaves free access to the ports for the micro USB, headphones, speaker, camera and flash. However, the best part of the case is that it leaves the gorgeous QWERTY keyboard available for instant use. The ‘opaque’ colour of the case, reacts to the white BlackBerry 9900 in such a way that from the front of the phone, the case appears to be silver. I believe this is a trick of the light reflecting on the ‘opaque’ case and the steel rim that surround the 9900.

I am unbelievably happy with this case and I would give it a 9/10 with the minus going towards the difference between ‘clear’ and ‘opaque’. The Soft Shell is available from BlackBerry via Amazon for £6.95 inclusive of post and packaging.

The gallery below gives you any further information that you need.

All images have been shot with the iPhone 4S as someone forgot to charge the Leica.

About The Author: Dani

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