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Case-Mate has been making accessories for Apple enthusiasts for a long time, and often provide unique case designs and high-quality craftsmanship. Did their updated version for their highly popular Barely There case hold true to the history of great products?

The Barely There case is extremely thin. The case is of the snap-on fashion; simply insert your phone, button side first, for an easy installation. The case is composed of soft-touch polymer, making handling the Barely There a pleasure.

The inside of the case is a lined with a shock-absorbing material which will help protect the back of the phone from scratching and drops.

The bottom of the case features one large cutout for the headphone jack, speaker, microphone, and lightning connector. The top of the case has an unnecessarily large cutout for the sleep/wake button that reveals the entire top of the device.  This cutout doesn’t need to be this big and just exposes the scratching prone metal.

The side of the case features a single cutout for the vibrate toggle switch and volume buttons. On the other side of the case, there is Case-Mate branding that is very unnoticeable.

The back of the case features a large cutout for the camera and flash. I haven’t experienced any issues with “flash bleeding” during camera use. The camera cutout is a little too big.  It is actually big enough to expose a decent amount of the aluminum back of the phone.  It doesn’t seem like it fits right and looks a little tacky.

The Barely There Case seems to offer some protection for a very minimalistic and unobtrusive design.  I really bought this case to retain a decent appearance of my iPhone 5 while providing protection.  After two or three days, the soft finish of the case began to peel off revealing the unfinished, reflective hard plastic.  The case continued to shed it’s finish until almost all the sides on the back were exposed to the unfinished plastic.  It began to look really ugly and seem like it was falling appart.  Other then that, the case seems very nice, but of course, a complete destruction of aesthetics after two days is not acceptable.

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