BodyGuardz Shelter keeps your phone safe, but limits camera use

BodyGuardz’ $30 Shelter for iPhone 4/4S is a rigid polycarbonate shell case with a soft TPE interior designed to protect your phone from bumps and scratches. The Shelter comes in nine attractive dual color combinations with fun, dessert-themed names like Licorice (black on black), Black Cherry (black on red), Cotton Candy (pink on purple), and Key Lime (green on light green).

The case is primarily made of hard polycarbonate, but has soft, rubber accents to help you put on and take off the case more easily. The BodyGuardz logo, which consists of two tough-looking guys that match the company name, is printed on the back in the accent color. The inside of the case has rubbery treads to keep the case from scratching your iPhone.

On the bulkiness scale, it falls somewhere in the middle, and with that comes some decent protection. The case comes with a ScreenGuardz PTE screen protector and cleaning cloth, plus the edges of the case come up over the screen a little bit to give your iPhone a bit of protection in case you drop it face-down. The case will fit into dock-cradle accessories only if they are intended to be used with a case. All ports and buttons are easily accessible via cut-outs; save for the Sleep/Wake button and volume buttons which are covered with a rubber overlay.

This otherwise solid case gets majorly docked due to problems with the cut-out for the back camera. As a result of the case being cut too close to the camera’s flash, every photo taken with flash has a washed-out bottom left corner. Outside of the camera, I had no other issues using the phone inside this case.

If you never use your camera’s flash, or if you don’t mind removing the case to properly use your camera, the BodyGuardz Shelter may suit you just fine. Since I do like using my flash unimpeded from time to time, I can’t recommend this case for comfortable use.

[Karen Freeman is a writer, teacher, and Apple fan. Follow her on Twitter @karensfreeman.]