Steve Litchfield

Covered in my initial Note 9 case roundup last Autumn were: Spigen Rugged Armor, £18 Olixar Premium with tempered glass, £25 Samsung LED View Cover Case, £55 Olixar MeshTex, £10 UAG Plyo, £30 Noreve Leather Cover, 70 Euros (See the links - or the headings below - for the original product pages!) As usual for my case roundups, I'll cover a variety of styles, with all samples supplied by MobileFun , kind people that they are. See their  complete range of Galaxy Note 9 cases and covers . Note (puns intended throughout!) that I'm going to refer to the phone as the 'Note 9', as do MobileFun. Samsung's stylistic 'Note9' just won't catch on - it looks awful! Ringke Fusion, £5 On offer at a knock down price as I write this, the Fusion design, here in clear but very tough plastic, is fabulously protective. In fact, it's ironic that the case itself arrives with protective covers of its own, to make sure that the clear almost mirror finish...

This is something of a followup to my original (G+) review of the Swiss Card Lite (on Amazon UK at  https://amzn.to/2REYRBO ) and complements it nicely, they sit in consecutive slots in my wallet! I bought this (about a tenner on Amazon UK at  https://amzn.to/2CBKJi2 ) because, despite my Swiss Card's functions, I had no way to open a bottle of beer and had to spend 20 mins at my dad's place trying to find a suitable opener. This has both top designs covered for beer (or Guinness!) and, as a bonus, gives five different nut cutouts, should you need to tighten or loosen something, typically on a bike or garden implement. A (cm) ruler, letter opener blade, and a couple of token screwdriver edges complete a useful metal gadget. And with surprisingly little overlap with my Swiss Card Lite. I now feel like I'm ready for anything. Including beer! 

Another flagship in for review - the Huawei Mate 20 Pro (sorry for the delay on looking at cases for it!) Anyway, more cases to try out and score! This is all thanks to the folks at MobileFun, see their Mate 20 Pro case selection in full . Official Huawei Clear TPU, £6 This is a good place to start, it's minimalist and yet provides some protection from all sides, even corner drops, with slightly raised edges at top and bottom. Don't rely on this to stop a cracked screen when falling onto tarmac, but it'll cope with drops around the home. And, as you'd expect from an official case, it fits like a glove. It also adds very little bulk. It's the sort of case which really should have been in the Mate 20 Pro retail box (maybe it is, in some regions?) Of course, being clear, you get to still enjoy the paint job on your shiny new Huawei - which is 'a very good thing indeed'. Top value too, for an official case at a pocket money price. At the ve...

After weeks with the Pixel 3 XL, an aspect of the phone's slightly odd design dawned on me. The 'notch' at the top of the phone has rightly caused controversy because of its depth - it's needed apparently because of the size of the front facing cameras and the use of a decent earpiece speaker. Regardless, it does let content flow up in the 'ears' to the top of the phone and it works well enough on the whole. But the bottom 'chin' looks wrong when you first see the phone - why is it quite so large? One theory is that it's to make room for (again) a loud speaker (and it's very loud), but I have another. You see, when a design takes the screen almost to the bottom edge of the phone and there's a notch at the top, media watching suffers by the playback window being off-centre. I realise that this is something of a nit-pick at some other phones, but could one reason for the Pixel 3 XL's bottom chin be that it matches the notch's de...

Another flagship in for review - this time it's the bigger, notched Pixel. And it means more cases to try out and score! I've taken a likely cross-section of Pixel 3 XL cases, thanks to the folks at  MobileFun , kind people that they are, and also to the folks at  Totallee  and (especially, given the cost)  Noreve . See Mobile Fun's  complete range of Pixel 3 XL cases and covers here . In no particular order(!): Ringke Fusion, £13 This has been one of my favourite cases for the last few years, on several phones. It's crystal clear (it comes with protective layers that need stripping off), ruggedly made, and has moulded bracings in the corners, to protect the phone from corner drops. Being clear has the huge advantage in 2018, with phones now coming in premium finishes, usually glass, that you actually get to see the expensive smartphone you just bought. The corner bracings double as feet when the phone's laid down on its back, plus t...