The only reason this is even getting TWO stars is that it DOES keep your phone SAFE. But then again, so would locking it in a steel box. That is about what this equates to.
For starters I'll say the design is pretty nice, but its actually quite difficult to take apart and put together, especially the first time. Now lets get onto what problems there are.
- Volume you can hear gets cut by about 1/3 from the case
- The headphone jack will only accept thin headphone cables with the case on, the rubberized outside case is so thick that a normal auxiliary jack will NOT fit (period) into the phone while the case is on, which means if you are like me and listen to music at work on speakers, you bought the wrong case because you can only do so if you REMOVE the case.
- "dust guard" is a sham. I am a cigarette smoker and the first night of having the phone I noticed that my cigarette ashes got INSIDE the screen protector so in any real dust environment you are definitely going to be blasting your phone with small particles, you just more than likely can't see them. Ashes are pretty visible, grains of sand are not.
- I've dropped my s3 only one time since owning it, and it has been because of the case. It fell out of the belt clip when I bent over to pick something up.
-It is INSANELY hard to hit the BACK button, I have to try numerous times. Everything else is very responsive, just nothing you have to touch on the edge of the screens (menu button, back button, or the top tool bar for notification) I sincerely feel that some big wig at a company designed this case for another phone where it worked well, and said lets just stretch the identical design to fit another phone.
All in all like I said, my phone dropped and never got hurt, the case provides lots of protection, and the clip FEELS very sturdy, but sometimes that can be deceptive. You lose so much function with this case it is appalling. I would return the case, but I do not want to mail a case back, wait 2 weeks for a credit, then find another case, then wait 2 more weeks for a new case to come. If you want to use your smart phone easily, and actually feel like you have a top of the line phone this is not the case for you. If all you are concerned about is dropping your phone and don't use it much for anything other than calls and texting this is great for you, however a S3 is intended for far far more than that, and this company did an amazing job screwing up their design just to make a quick buck.
My Razr HD Maxx has taken three waist high or a little higher drops onto concrete surfaces and the only damage has been slight marking on the carbon fiber corner and one small gouge on the metal edge band and one piece of the plastic corner has a mark.
