Need a little color in your life? Tired of looking at your white Nano? Griffin Techology wants to help. Their new Trio and Trio Plus lineup are here to provide a bit of flexibility and protection in the realm of iPod cases. How did they stand up? You’ll have to read the review to see.
INTRODUCTION
AT A GLANCE
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Available in a variety of colors, the Trio and Trio Plus are only seperated by the number of color options you have at first purchase. The Trio comes with the case, and a color matched flap and belt loop flap. The Trio Plus comes with a case, a color matched flap and belt loop flap, and then three other colored flaps that you can mix and match with.
Here is the sample color lineup of the review units. Starting from the far left (black, black, red, and silver) to the light blue flap, these were included with the Trio Plus kit. The two light pink flaps were part of the pink Trio case.
The front of these cases have an exposed hole for the click wheel, and a stitched-in plastic window for the screen. Griffin took great care to make sure that the stitches were as soft as the leather inside the case, to avoid scratching the area around the screen. You install the case on the iPod by sliding it up from the bottom, thus leaving the docking port and headphone jack exposed. Once the flap is attached, you still have access to the headphone port. Alas, the case does have some bulk, so any docking station will probably require you to either remove the iPod or slide it out far enough to connect. Docking cables will not have this issue as long as the flap is open or removed.
On the back of the unit is the snap and magnet flap connections. As you can see above, the hold button is still accessible even in the case, but the iPod is still protected. The fit on my wife’s 1st Generation Nano was very snug, even after constant use.
Once closed, the flap completely covers the face of the unit, thus protecting it from harm. The stitching and leather (high tech material in some cases) of the case and flap are both very well made and the touch was soft and comfortable in one’s hands.
With either line, one belt clip flap is included. The Trio version is the same color as the case and flap, while the Trio Plus rendition only comes in the color of the case (black or white). The steel clip is very sturdy, and keeps the fragile face of the iPod towards one’s body, rather than possibly exposed. This does mean that you would have to either declip the case or trust the snap to hold the iPod if you wanted to get access to the click wheel or screen.
As you can see, the blue and black scheme included with the Trio Plus line does look good, but as a friend of mine commented, she would rather have the whole case be blue than opt for the multi-color options. It really comes down to that: are you someone who likes to change things up once in a while
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You can purchase Griffin Technology’s Trio here ($19.99) or the Trio Plus here ($29.99). type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
The Griffin Technology Trio and Trio Plus are both great flip cases with a lot of color flexibility. Not only is the iPod safe, but it is also secure in its leather (or high tech) wrapper. But for that safety, you gain a little bulk. The removable flap makes for easy transitions to other colors or even a belt loop, if desired. If you are looking for a new case for your iPod Nano, we’d highly recommend this one.
THE DRAWING BOARD
Not too much that could be asked for as far as improvements are concerned. While there aren’t very many case color choices in the Trio Plus line, I would guess most folks would go for the Trio (as they wouldn’t need the added customization).
PURCHASING
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CONS
Value
Ease
of Use
Features
Overall
OVERALL IMPRESSION
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