Most of the AnandTech crew seems to be averse to putting cases on their
phones for a variety of different reasons. I’m still of the persuasion
where I want a case for everything that I’m going to carry regularly
both to prevent putting scratches and also have a resulting device form
factor something that looks a bit different than the norm.
A few weeks after our iPhone 5 review posted, Element Case reached out
to me and offered to sample a review unit of their upcoming iPhone 5
case, the aptly named Sector 5. Element Case has been known for a while
for making exotic cases that use metal instead of plastic and look like
nothing you’ll see others carrying around, so when I heard about the
iPhone 5 version I jumped at the opportunity. In addition, since I spent
a lot of time back in the iPhone 4 and 4S days doing attenuation
testing, getting to the bottom of whether this unique case detunes the
antenna was particularly intriguing.
Inside the box is the case itself, a removable adhesive suede back
cover, keychain mountable screw driver, a “transit EVA case” which is a
hard pouch with zipper for the phone, and some rash guards for the
aluminum side.
For installation, Element Case wants you to apply removable sticker
“rash guards” which essentially prevent the anodization from chipping
off of the device. In theory these are great, but not totally necessary,
as the case includes a soft rubber material around its inner perimeter
to prevent aluminum from touching aluminum. The Sector 5 wraps around
the iPhone 5 and then screws together at top left to lock the phone in
place. The supplied screwdriver is keychain mountable so that if you
need to get your iPhone out of the case it’s handy. In practice there
really shouldn’t be any need to take it out of the case unless you’re
moving to a different one or have a stubborn docking station, since the
SIM tray and other connectors are easily accessible on the device.
The Element Sector 5 is a completely different case than the norm,
since, like I mentioned earlier, it’s made from 6061 aluminum instead of
polycarbonate plastic, silicone, or some other polymer. This gives it a
completely different in-hand feel than basically every other case on
the market, one that’s eerily similar to the iPhone’s native aluminum
characteristics. With the case on, the overall package is still
surprisingly light since there’s a lot of material machined out of the
sides. With the case installed, I measured a mass of 133.7 grams over
the iPhone 5’s native 112 grams.
For the back there’s an adhesive sticker which in my case was suede,
though there are different back materials available. Having a suede
backed device is something very different from what I’m used to, and
surprisingly enough works well. I haven’t picked up a lot of dirt or
grime leaving the phone backside down on surfaces, and the suede feels
great.
On the left side is a large cutout for accessing the vibration switch
and volume buttons. They’re a little difficult to get to because of the
depth of the machined groove, but still workable. At top is the power
button, and beside it a groove where more material was machined out. I
have no issues with the power button, it is still clicky and
communicative.
The right side has a cool cantilever looking structure with a large
enough gap to get to the SIM tray and ejection port. I’m very grateful
that Element Case chose to leave the SIM tray accessible since I’m
constantly swapping SIMs, and making you take the whole case off to get
to this would get old fast.
At the bottom are cutouts for the microphone, speaker, earphone jack,
and lightning connector. The Lightning connector is big enough for the
standard Apple USB to Lightning cable, but not quite big enough for the
Lightning to 30-pin or the Amazon Basics Lightning to USB cable, both of
which required filing to make them fit. I’m not surprised by this
however since it seems as though every Apple ecosystem case I come
across requires filing to make all the accessories work. The earphone
jack hasn’t been a problem with my Shure SE535 cable, thankfully.
The aesthetics of the Sector 5 case are radical. You quite honestly are
highly unlikely to run across someone with the same case on their
iPhone 5, and as a result it’s always drawing attention when I have it
on. I find the Sector 5 looks like something out of Quake rather than an
iPhone case, with the aggressive geometric protrusions at the four
corners, modern angular shape, and radical design. It’s definitely a bit
crazy in the industrial design department as far as an iPhone case
goes, but I’m a fan of how this makes the device look.
In terms of feel, the Sector 5 is a bit sharp at times but also is easy
to get a firm hand grip on, as the bulges at the four corners make it
easy to grasp onto. The Sector 5 also doesn’t make the device much
thicker than it is already as a result of its design. The tradeoff is
that there’s not too much front display protection beyond the supplied
screen protector (which I almost always refuse to install when supplied
with cases), but there is a lip so that when laid front down the device
isn’t totally coplanar with the surface it rests on.
I’ve dropped the Sector 5 with the iPhone inside twice and was left
only with a small deformity from the impact that is hardly visible, with
no discoloration or scratching off of anodization. The case looks like
it wouldn’t afford too much protection, but it does a good enough job at
deflecting impacts on the sides or back; just avoid the front unless
you’ve applied the screen protector.
The big question is just how much adding an aluminum case to a
smartphone affects antenna gain and cellular performance. I’ll note that
I’m still using the case on a daily basis when using the iPhone 5, so
the short of the matter is — not a whole lot, if at all.
First, Element Case has included polymer links between each of the four
main aluminum blocks so there’s no continuity between them, which is
easy enough to verify with a multimeter. In addition the case is
insulated from the aluminum exterior of the iPhone 5 with a rubber
material, so there’s really no galvanic contact between case and phone.
That’s a good first step to not change too much of the ground plane or
inadvertently create a path between the bottom primary antenna and top
secondary antenna on the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 has an RFMD RF1102
tuning block and seems to do a good job dealing with any antenna
detuning that the Sector 5 might introduce. I won’t say that the Sector 5
doesn’t affect the antennas at all, as adding conductors this close to
the device clearly does, but the much improved tuning onboard the device
seems to cope with it perfectly well and I haven’t noticed any ill
effects.
-101 dBm RSRP on the iPhone 5 with Incipio Dual Pro, -102 on iPhone 5 with Sector 5. I've done other testing where both were identical.
I compared my iPhone 5 against a few others also on AT&T LTE (Band
17) and on AT&T WCDMA (Band 2 PCS) and didn’t notice any difference
in RSRP or RSCP respectively after allowing the two to stabilize. I’m
impressed that there really is no difference, and in using the device a
lot with the case on I haven’t noticed any difference on my mental
signal map.
