Review: Tuff Luv case for Acer Iconia

October 8, 2011 in All posts, review

As an Acer Iconia owner, I’ve been throughly impressed with the tablet: it’s been largely flawless to use, and since I have Android mobile handsets it syncs nicely with all my contacts and email. It made sense, then, to protect my tablet since I commute a fair way each day. Enter the Tuff Luv case to solve my problems.

This Acer Iconia A500 case is billed as being designed specifically for the Iconia, and it’s very well-made with good quality leather and a suede lining inside the front cover – plus the prerequisite business card holders and slots for…things. It also has a kick-stand on the back, meaning you can prop it up to watch/read/browse etc. All sounding good so far. But this is where it goes slightly awry.

I slot the Iconia in and secure it with the little Velcro strap, and immediately notice a problem: the tablet slides around inside the case quite a lot. It’s also apparent that this case has been designed with other tablets in mind, too, since there’re little cutouts in the surrounding leather for ports and cameras that don’t exist on the Iconia. Excuse the slightly pants camera shot quality:

Doesn't quite fit the bill

This is no big deal, so I plough on. Time for the road test!

I’ve taken the tablet to work each day this week in the case, and its been held securely each time and never fallen out or been damaged. In terms of real world use, this is where the lack of snug fit really starts to show: since the Iconia has controls at the bottom left corner of the screen – and the on/off switch sits in the top right of the tablet – when it slides around, it makes accessing these really fiddly. It doesn’t sound like a massive issue, but the reality is that this hinders basic operation of the tablet functions quite a bit. That said, the main on-screen activities such as typing an browsing etc are done without issue.

Slip-slidin'

All in all, it’s a disappointment – not least because it looks fantastic and is very well-made (truly cannot be faulted in that respect), but in terms of actual daily use it’s just too tricky. Back to the drawing board, then!