Egrips

Hands on review by lgreenberg

April 1, 2006

Price as reviewed: $12.95

I’ve been using Egrips on most of my electronic devices for a few years. From my Ipod to phones, Treo, Palm’s and now my Blackberry. I find them to be a vital accessory item that helps ensure my device never takes an unwanted tumble.

Egrips® are precisely cut pieces of egrips® Technology Material, for cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, iPods, MP3 players, gaming devices, and more. They look cool, feel great and fit just right.

Egrips® Technology Material's gripping performance comes from the protective silicone adhesive material. The material's high coefficient of friction prevents devices from sliding around on dry surfaces, like car seats, center consoles, counter tops, desktops, laptops and more. The Egrips® Technology Material is very thin and will not prohibit the use of a case or clip! The specially formulated adhesive will not damage your device's surface and removes cleanly.

Egrips for the Blackberry 8700 are currently only available in clear. There is one set of Egrips per package.



The package also includes two alcohol prep. pads. The instructions tell you to first clean your device with the prep pads to remove any dirt or grime that might otherwise get stuck underneath the Egrip.



After sufficiently cleaning your device the Egrips are applied the same way you’d apply a screen protector. Starting at one end you position the piece and then slowly smooth it out until it’s set in place. A credit card used helps to smooth out the back piece to prevent bubbles from forming.

The set for the 8700 comes with a total of five pieces. One for the back, two for the sides, one for the front top and one for the bottom front.



Note. I have my Egrips installed over top a set of The Best Skins Ever. This gives me the ultimate amount of protection.

Back



Side



Side



I did not install the pieces for the top and bottom front. I just can’t see how my hand would come in contact with those parts of the device. I’d rather see a piece made for the actual top of the Blackberry (where the power and mute buttons are) instead of the face.

It's also worth noting that Radio Shack is a national seller of Egrips. They don't however stock the device specific sets but do sell the universal patterns.



These allow you to create your own pattern for placement on your device.

Pros: Prevents drops, clear, can still use most cases/clips.
Cons Collects lint.

Nice review! I might have to look into this for my 7100i, if available.

Sure are.

7100i



Product Page

Wirelessly posted (7100T: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7100/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

I loved them on my 7100. The grip has warn down (took a long time) and if I weren't getting an 8700 in a few weeks I'd definitely buy them again.

Excellent Review! I gotta get some when I get back from Vegas this week!

Thanks.

Yep, I firmly beleive they are an essential item.

great review, greats pics...I got way more out of your post, then I did when viewing their own website. Thank you sooo much!

Lgreenberg - when you say they collect lint, is this something where they are sticky and they constantly get dusty and dirty? Also, when used with a case, do they tend to peel up after a while by getting caught on the case, etc?

They are not really sticky more just tacky.

They don't peel up when placed in and out of a case.

Do they fit on the extended battery as well?

Unfortunately the back piece does not. I've tried.

I sent an e-mail to them a few weeks ago asking if they had plans to make a set for the extended battery but never got a response.

I'll ask again.

Thanks lgreenberg. Your word is as good as gold to me. You are the man!!

if by 'vegas' you mean you're at CTIA, the egrips folks had a booth at CES so they may be at CTIA.

i've had them on my BB's since day one and they are awesome.

Ordered the eGrips, thanks lgreenberg. Great reviews, as usual.

One can only hope to be as good as he..

I wish they had another color, perhaps a fun one for us girls who want to make ours a bit more girly. ha. But I will be ordering one of these. I just ordered some last week for my cell phone.

Many on the other sets come in multiple colors.

I'm not sure why they don't make ones for the 8700 in the other colors too.

Just a quick message to add my amazement with these - I got mine today and they are awesome. They may have changed the package a bit as mine do not have the piece for the bottom, only for the front which I am not using. What is terrific is that these make my Gizmoskin case much more snug - not too much where it is hard to take it out but much better so it is not too losse, which I hated.

Get these - the company was super fast - immediately shipped and got here in 2 days!

Mine are still working great except the one on the top. It never stayed on so I ended up throwing it away. The others are still on.

Just ordered a Fortte Lateral Pouch, anyone having problems with E grips and the fit in one of these pouches? Thought I would ask before I bought the egrips for nothing.

Thanks!

I have used these things for over a year and love them. But I order the generic black assortment and stick the biggest grip on the back of my 7290 and that is it, that allows me to set it on the dash of my car and it does not move.

lgreenberg, I just bought a second set of eGrips (these are the Black Universal Carbon Fiber eGrips that look like they fit a Nokia phone. I was not able to go with my mom, who bought them for me, and look to see if they had any specifically for BlackBerry 7100 models). I tested the performance by placing 6 grips on my 7100t and 6 on my 7105t. I put the grips on the back, sides, and tops of my 'Berries. Here's my review. I don't have a digital camera or I would post pics of my grips.

The grips that I put flat on the back of the phones work fine and keep the 'Berries from flying off a tray and/or nightstand in my room (I have a bad habit of dropping and knocking things off tables and trays, including my 'Berries). They also keep me from dropping my BlackBerry on my pc, the other reason I bought them. My phones slide out of my hand a lot.

However, the eGrips on the sides and tops of both BlackBerries won't stay in place. I find myself having to secure them back in place several times a day (which happened with the top grip from the first set). Am I putting them on wrong? As you said, there are no pics of them being applied to BlackBerries, which would help a lot. Even the ones I got from eAccess.com didn't have a picture of them being applied to a 'Berry.

I can get both phones into my Krusell Multidapt Case with the eGrips but I cannot close the zipper completely with the grips on the bottom of the phones (the side grips are so long that they cover the bottom of the phones too). The problem happens when I try to close the case with the zipper. The zipper stops when it gets past the grip on the left side of the phone. In other words, I am able to only close the case halfway. How hard is it going to be to get the 'Berry in my Fortte Open Face case with the grips on? I know that case has no zippers but I just want to know how much of a fight it will be to close the top snap and how much I may have to stretch the case to fit the side grips.

Other than these few problems and questions, I love eGrips. I wish I'd had them before I went thru 3 hp iPAQ 6315 Pocket PC Phone Editions which were unusable after damaging drops which broke the SIM card holders inside the phones. Same thing happened to 2 Dell Axim X50 Pocket PC's which just up and quit working after being dropped (I knocked over the first one while it was in it's cradle, which was also damaged in this incident).

My only thought is to try the set made for your device.