[Nexus 6  General] phallb:
When I got my N6 I was originally holding out until some form of battery case / attachable battery came out (still waiting lol) because if there's one thing I love , it's squeezing out every minute of battery life from my phone before having to plug it in.

While waiting for this nonexistent accessory, I saw a deal on amazon for a Ringke case and bought it mostly out of impulse because it was $4 with free shipping and a screen protector. I went with the Ringke Slim SF black because it looked fairly similar to the material on the actual phone.

then life / luck / phone-karma / whatever you want to call it, gave me a sucker punch. The Ringke case was 10 days late from it's "guaranteed" ship date.

The night before the case finally arrived, my phone slipped out of my pocket while I was getting out of my car and made a horrifying "crunch" as it hit the pavement. Screen. shattered. :crying:

After sending in my phone to motorola, paying the $175 "repair" fee (otherwise known as the fee for them just sending a replacement phone), switching back over to my old phone (galaxy S4 - which I might add I have dropped and pretty much launched across the room more times than I could count without enduring a single scratch :mad: ), and grieving for my belated N6, the Ringke case arrived.

Upon opening the package, It immediately became clear that the Ringke Slim, while thin and sleek, is a flimsy piece of cheap plastic that would make little difference if I were to drop my phone in the future. Not to mention the free screen protector that came with it was also garbage.

So while I waited for my replacement phone to arrive from motorola, I did some research on the various cases out there in an attempt to find one that might actually serve it's sole purpose - protecting the phone.

I ended up ordering two cases that seemed like the best combination of protective and slim / nice looking:

As titled on amazon:

1) Caseology Mesh Metallic Silver Non-Slip Cover Shock Absorbent TPU Armor Bumper Case

2) i-Blason Unity Series 2 Layer [Ultra Slim] Armored Hybrid Cover with Inner Soft Case and Hard Outter Shell

When my (hopefully last) new Nexus 6 arrived, I tried the Ringke on it, laughed, tossed that PoS, tried the other two cases on it, and was much happier both of them.

I ended up deciding to stick with the i-Blason due to the hard outer shell (which looks nice, good quality, doesn't cheapen the look of the phone) paired with a inner layer TPU case. Seems like a hard shell with bumper protection paired with a TPU soft case inside (from what I read TPU are slightly better for protecting phones during a fall).

I should also mention that the buttons on the i-Blason are actually better (in my opinion) than the ones on the actual phone. The case covers the buttons with new buttons built into the case and are actually a lot easier to locate when blindly grabbing my phone to press one of them and such. The cutouts for the micro USB and audio jack are plenty big which many other popular cases seem to have mixed reviews about.

Lastly, the i-Blason has a slight texture along the sides which makes gripping the phone with one hand 1000% easier. Before, my phone felt like a greased up watermelon on the verge of flying out of my hands - now I find myself easily gripping it with just a few fingers / don't have a panic attack every time I take one of my hands off of the phone while walking lol.

TL;DR: Ringke Slim vs Caseology mesh back vs i-Blason 2-layer case = tie between the latter two (by a landslide) with a personal preference for the i-Blason.

I also (mostly out of fear that my phone would go flying out of my pocket and shatter again) got a tempered glass protector after chatting with someone at an AT&T store about it. His experience with temepered glass protectors was "The screen protector shatters instead of my phone, it's great. I've gone through 4-5 TG protectors instead of 4-5 new phones" (apparently he drops his phone a lot? haha). If the TG protector shatters instead of the phone, that's reason enough for me after seeing my first N6 explode from a 3-4 foot tumble.

In the past, I never used cases unless they were incredibly thin and had a battery inside. But now that new high-end devices are getting more expensive while also managing to become so fragile that they shatter when a slight breeze picks up, it really wasn't up for debate this time for me.

I'll never willingly drop my new(er) N6 to test how sturdy the case / TG screen protector is, but I'm fairly confident that I've increased the phone's chance for survival as much as possible without just wrapping the entire thing in bubble wrap.