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Pocket Solutions Cover Up for the Tungsten T
January 14, 2003
The Cover Up is a metal flip cover designed to protect the screen of the Tungsten T (and several other handheld devices, if you don’t happen to have a Tungsten). It’s rather reminiscent of the beloved old Palm III series flip cover, with a few new twists. The Cover Up actually attaches to the back of the device (don’t worry, it doesn’t interfere with the slider mechanism at all), using two strips of Velcro and some adhesive. I’m not all that thrilled about sticking things to my handhelds, but this system works pretty well. Especially because of the Velcro—that way you can very quickly and easily remove the Cover Up from your device if you need to put it into another case. Next there’s a static portion of the Cover Up that covers the top of your device and forms part of the hinge. I like this part of the design as well, because that makes it much less likely that my SD card will pop out and get lost. I do have to remove the Cover Up if I want to switch cards, but that doesn’t happen very often anyway, and provides a little extra protection for both my $120 SD card and the data that’s stored on it.
Next of course is the front of the Cover Up, which almost completely covers the front of my Tungsten T, as seen in the photo. The color match isn’t exact, but it’s not too bad either. It would be nice if Pocket Solutions would come out with colored covers to add some extra personalization options. On the inside of the front cover there is a nice patch of neoprene-like material to further cushion the screen of the device and ensure a good fit. Future versions of the Cover Up will also have two little rubber feet on the inside bottom edge to make sure that the Cover Up doesn’t accidentally push any of the buttons on the front of the device and turn it on unnecessarily.
Of course the question everyone has been asking is about the functionality of the Cover Up. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I have to say I like it, but I’m definitely not in love. The edges of the Cover Up are relatively smooth, but I think that they should be more rounded to prevent accidental scratches or cuts to the fingers. The hinge at the top of the device also hasn’t loosened up any with use, which means that the Cover Up is still not really a one-handed accessory. You still need to grip the device in one hand and flip up the cover with the other, which means that this will not be the one missing piece of your Captain Kirk Halloween costume! And the cover does touch the bottom of the 5 way navigation pad on the Tungsten, which could cause battery drain problems, but the developer has already addressed that issue. Let’s hope that future versions of the Cover Up are even better than this one. Right now it’s a nice product, but one that I think you need to check out for yourself to determine whether or not it meets your handheld computing needs. Available for $24.95 at the Pocket Solutions web site.
PocketGoddess rating for the Pocket Solutions Cover Up: 
