Review Followups – U-Suit for iPhone by Uniea and Vibe Duo headset for iPhone

Review Followups – U-Suit for iPhone by Uniea and Vibe Duo headset for iPhone

While some products get longer evaluations than others, the Weeks division of MyMac Labs rarely gets the chance to use a product on an ongoing basis after the review period is over.

We previously reviewed the Uniea U Suit for iPhone, and rated it highly. The U Suit became our preferred iPhone case. But several months of day-to-day use revealed a problem with the case design. As noted in the review, the iPhone slips into the U Suit from the top, and there is no flap or latch to secure the iPhone once in the U Suit; the iPhone is held in place by friction.

Since the iPhone does not fit into the dock when in the U Suit, you need to take it out of the case fairly often, depending on your syncing habits. If you don’t use the dock, and sync with just the cable, you can leave the iPhone in the U Suit.

After six months of usage, the case’s firm friction fit had loosened to the point where the iPhone now sometimes falls out of the U Suit. I’ve had two spills in the past two weeks, and now have a few small scratches on the iPhone case.

I’ve tried sticking duct tape patches on the inside of the U Suit case to add thickness and friction, but that has not helped.

I’ll have to retire my beloved U Suit case, as it’s no longer holding my iPhone securely.

The VIBE Duo dual-purpose headphone/headset for Apple iPhone was also highly rated in my review.

Again, like the U Suit, six months of regular (not hard) usage has shown some faults.

In the past two weeks, crackling and static has developed in the audio output. The attachment point where the cable connects to the audio plug has fatigued internally. The result is random blasts of static in one earbud whenever the cable moves. Obviously, that’s virtually all the time.

9/30/08 Followup to the Followup.

V-Moda has sent me a new Vibe Duo, with a redesigned plug that should eliminate the cable attach point wear, thus preventing the static.

I’ll wring it out and post my findings later.