No matter how many imitations crop up, a Spigen phone case is still the best choice for a foldable phone by a long shot. Despite the fact that foldable phones have been on the market for a number of years now, they are still considered by many to be somewhat of a niche, luxury product. Due to this odd label being applied to the devices, in combination with the sheer amount of wild variety that exists when it comes to the dimensions of foldable devices, good cases for foldable phones are still remarkably difficult to come by with any real consistency.
Apart from Spigen that is.
I first got my Galaxy Z Fold 2 in 2021 and it was my first foldable phone. Due to the fact that it was a device worth almost £2000 when I first purchased it, I was able to justify the premium price tag of a Spigen case. I previously owned a Spigen case, (equipped with a magnetic kick stand,) for my Google Pixel 2 XL a few years ago and had a great experience with it, so going with the manufacturer again just made sense.
The case that I opted for was the Black Spigen Tough Armor Case. It set me back around £50 at the time and although it lacked the magnetic kick stand of my Pixel 2 XL case, it did come equipped with a thick plastic shell, a cushioned interior and perhaps most vitally; hinge protection. The hinge protection on the case was a pretty ingenious workaround to a very specific, first-world issue: A flexible piece of tough plastic that slid into the backside of the case upon the phone being unfolded.
Unfortunately, that sliding piece of plastic was what ultimately brought about the demise of my beloved Spigen case. After around a year of daily usage, the stickiness of the adhesive pads within the case came unstuck, meaning that the front part of the case would no longer stay flush with the device when opened. This would lead to me habitually having to manually insert the flexible piece of hinge protection into the backside of the case. Over time, this eventually caused the small plastic clips at the top and bottom of the case’s spine to break off, which led to the case completely falling apart.
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After holding a small, private vigil for my fallen comrade, I decided against dropping another 50 quid on a Spigen case, instead opting to look for an alternative solution. In the time between now and then, I have tried a multitude of cheaper alternatives. First off, I opted for a case that came with the one thing that my Spigen case was lacking; a kick stand. Unfortunately, it was lacking in terms of any sort of hinge protection and before too long, the cheap, non-magnetic, plastic kick stand predictably snapped off.
I then decided to go for another basic thin, black case that came with no hinge protection and an inbuilt screen protector for the front panel of the Fold. While this was a novel idea that did work well for the first couple of weeks, due to the fact that the plastic screen protector was made from the cheapest, thinnest plastic that you can imagine, scratches and dents quickly emerged across its surface, causing my phone to look far more tired and old than it actually was. Still, I put up with it for a while until eventually, the plastic frame around the screen protector snapped on the thinnest outer part, rendering the case completely unusable.
Moving forward from that, I came across a case on Ebay that I initially thought had answered my prayers. It came with the inbuilt plastic screen protector for the front panel, as my previous case also had. However, this one also came equipped with an attempt at hinge protection. There was a thin plastic hinge cover attached to the back of the case that clipped into a couple of small ridges at the top and bottom of the case. The problem with this was just how thin and cheap the plastic used for the case was. After dropping the phone a single time, whether indoors or outdoors, the small plastic clips that held the hinge cover in place would inevitably snap off, exposing that delicate hinge to the elements once more.
After failing to learn my lesson the first time, I went ahead and bought the exact same case again after my first one broke. I’m giving no points for guessing what happened next. That’s right, after the phone fell off of my bedside table while charging, the hinge protection was no more. I don’t even think that the thing was able to remain intact for an entire month.
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Whilst all of these cases served their purpose for a very brief time immediately after I purchased them, they had absolutely no staying power. Due to the cheap materials used to produce them, long-term usage was an impossibility. Also, when adding up the total cost of all of these individual subpar cases, I have undoubtedly spent far more than the £50 asking price of a Spien case.
After feeling like I was banging my head off of a proverbial wall, I reached out to Spigen to share my plight and the good folks over there were kind enough to send me over a fresh case to check out. The Spigen Slim Armor Pro Case was the one that was sent to me and it is a phenomenal product. It is far superior to any of the cheap cases I have been using recently and even slightly superior to the two previous Spigen cases I owned. It offers complete protection using a sturdy, sliding hinge cover which is frankly ingenious.
Aside from my gushing over this product’s clever design choices, using this case for the past week has also proved the point that even in the four years since the launch of the original Galaxy Fold, there is still no better case for a foldable device than the ones offered by Spigen. It is frankly astonishing that no other case manufacturer has come close in the past four years. Spigen seems to have the monopoly on this certain corner of the market, but it is impossible to deny that the company hasn’t earned it due to the sheer quality of the products that carry the Spigen branding.
Although they have not yet been adopted by the mainstream audience, foldable phones are undeniably going to be a huge part of the future of smartphones. Other companies are slowly, but surely throwing their respective hats into the foldable ring. Rumours of industry behemoths such as Apple, Google and OnePlus getting involved in foldable space have persisted for over a year at this point, with many predicting that we will see a foldable product from at least one of the aforementioned companies by the end of the year.
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If that rumour does indeed prove to be accurate, you can bet your bottom dollar that Spigen is going to be right there with a quality case to match it straight out of the gate. If other the other manufacturers are smart, then they will also want to get into this growing market ASAP, but until then we always have Spigen.
In addition to the Slim Armor Pro Case, Spigen were also kind enough to send FandomWire a sample their Spigen OneTap Universal Car Phone Holder, which works brilliantly in tandem with their phone case. If you are a driver looking for a quality phone holder than can handle a fairly hefty product like the Galaxy Z Fold 2, then this is the product that you want.
