$80 for a Kindle case is bordering on outrageous, in my opinion, but I can see this having a lot of value if you’re an outdoorsy type, or if you have a pool, or if you constantly read in the bathtub, or if you plan on vacationing near any bodies of water this summer. There are cheaper options out there, but as you can see, this one looks tough and trustworthy.
The whole “always floats screen-side up” feature is pretty cool for poolside reading. I’m not sure I’d have the courage to deliberately leave my Kindle floating in the water while I sip a mai-tai and think about how awesome my life is, but I guess with enough mai-tais in me I’d be testing it out whether I meant to or not.
Paul Biba over at Teleread got one, and last week he posted a photo of it floating in his kitchen sink. He writes that while it all works pretty well, there’s one rather big issue with the power switch: you can’t reach it.
The keypad, joy stick and side buttons are all completely usable. The only button that isn’t accessible is the slide on the top to turn the Kindle on, so you must have the Kindle running before you put it in the case.
A customer on Amazon also complains about this, and says if he forgets his Kindle for too long then it goes into sleep mode and he has to open the case to wake it. It would seem then that this first version of the Guardian Case is meant for active reading, or at least for people who can remember to press a button on the device every 9 minutes or so.
M-Edge Guardian Case for Kindle