Review: Verso Fire 7 2015 Case - Sea Blue Classic Slim Fit Premium PU Leather Book Folio Style Protective Case (7 inch Display - 5th Generation, 2015 Release Only)

• January 25, 2016
• James Skemp
• review

The following is a review of the Verso Fire 7 2015 Case - Sea Blue Classic Slim Fit Premium PU Leather Book Folio Style Protective Case (7 inch Display - 5th Generation, 2015 Release Only), received as part of the Amazon Vine Program.

If only the hinge were better

A few weeks ago I was looking at tablets since my second generation Nexus 7 is starting to get rather slow, and doesn't seem to want to hold a charge as well as it once did. After taking a look at a handful of devices I decided to pick up a new Amazon Fire 8.

However, over the course of the next couple days the price of the Amazon Fire 7 kept nagging at me, and since I'm a developer, and had some interest in developing for the Amazon Appstore, decided that I could splurge and get myself an early Christmas gift. Of course, that also meant that I needed to get a new case.

The first thing I immediately noticed was the material the case was made with, and the second was the smell. While I've since forgotten the smell, it lingered for the first handful of days, but was gone within a week.

The texture of the materials is still about, but hard to explain. It's smooth, but it has something that gives it a very slight texture. It's hard to explain, and is better than the inside texture, which is much more noticeable. I'm not sure what it is, but if I rub my thumbs back and forth on it the sound and texture causes 'tingles' in my upper back/neck.

Next we have the hinge, which based upon my review title, is the key sticking point for me. Unlike many other cases the back doesn't stay attached to the back of the case, but instead about two thirds fold away and are used for the stand.

While nice in principle, I instead found that if I wanted to hold the device as I would with a book, that the flexibility of the back and hinge caused the hinge to either fold oddly, or the top and most of the bottom to be too loose.

The other feature of the note are the buttons on the top of the case that cover both volume buttons and the power. While the volume buttons seem fine, with little more pressure required, the power button does require more pressure to switch on/off. The impact of this is fairly minor.

Finally, the case itself fits snugly around the Fire 7, and the top cover can be held in place, covering the screen, with the attached band. In practice I found that putting one edge of the band in place was sufficient most of the time. It seems sturdy enough, but time will tell how long it lasts.

Overall, the hinge is the biggest issue I have with this cover. For the 7-inch tablet I feel like my use case is as reading device, which means I ran into the hinge either buckling or sliding down far too often. Because of this I knock a star off and give the Verso Fire 7 2015 Case 4 of 5 stars.

• review