Protecting your tech

When ever I get a new tech device, espe­cially one that’s small, port­able, and has a dis­play screen, I imme­di­ately look to pro­tect­ing that screen and device. I’m kinda clumsy at times, and any­thing that can pro­tect my hard­ware from *me* is a worth­while invest­ment. I dropped my iPod Touch down the stairs last year, without a case, and the screen developed a hair­line crack that killed about 2% of the pixels. The Touch works fine oth­er­wise, but it’s annoy­ing to have to deal with that flawed dis­play part.

Pro­tec­tion
On my cam­era, I pro­tec­ted the view-screen with a clear adhes­ive protector.

In the past, with my vari­ous Palm devices, I’d gone with an alu­mini­um-lined leath­er book-style case, and a clear adhes­ive plastic screen protector.

For my iPod Touch, I have a simple leath­er pouch, and my wife has a flip-style case — also with an alu­mini­um pan­el over the screen, and a rather nifty full-body ‘skin’ from BestSkinsEver.com. It’s trans­par­ent, made from rein­for­cing plastic used in heli­copter blades, and very tough.

For my iPad, I opted for a port­fo­lio-style leath­er case from Fossil, and a full body clear skin sim­il­ar to the one on my wife’s iPod Touch. She’s got an Apple sil­ic­one iPad case.

Defence in depth
So you see a bit of a pat­tern here. I’m using two lay­ers of pro­tec­tion on my devices; a robust and shock-absorb­ing case to carry the device in, and a clear pro­tect­ive skin to pro­tect the unit from scratches and wear. The skins make it easi­er to keep the devices clean, and I have less worry when using them in a mobile envir­on­ment — if the skin gets too scratched, simply peel it off and replace it.

Your turn, how do you pro­tect your mobile devices?