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Griffin Clarifi Case for iPhone Provides Some Clarity

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clarifi2 Some times simple solutions work best. There’s no mistaking the fact that compared to many other cameras on smart phones and feature phones the camera on the iPhone suffers from comparison. It almost harkens back to the early days of UMPCs when the webcams that were included on those devices were just horrible and not worth the ticket.

But there have been a few attempts to make the bad better and one of those is the Griffin Clarifi case for the iPhone 3G.

 

First up, the polycarbonate case works very well as just that, a case. It has all the openings in the right place to hit the appropriate buttons and charge up your phone without removing it from the case. The bottom third slides off easily enough if you want to put your iPhone in a dock.

But, the real simplicity of this case comes with the sliding close-up lens for the camera. It actually improves the quality of close up photos. In fact, I was impressed with how much it does so. Granted, you’ve still got an insufficient camera to work with, but if you’re taking close up or macro shots, especially those that have text in them, this simple solution works very well. I find it also enhances color as well. Here a few shots I’ve taken with this below. 

Without Griffin Clarifi With Griffin Clarifi
camera 001 camera 002
camera 003 camera 004
camera 005 camera 006
camera 012 camera 013
4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Chad O.

    12/06/2008 at 10:59 pm

    I’ve been very impressed with it so far, I wrote up a short review using Evernote for OCR for capturing text out of books and newspapers:

    https://www.mobilegenealogy.com/2008/12/02/griffin-clarifi-for-iphone-review-photos-ocr/

    I think if people were able to see demos of this in stores, they’d be pretty interested in it, because a lot of people blow off the iPhone’s camera as being next-to-useless for anything other than the occasional candid.

    Evernote’s blog was actually where I first came across this, and they talked about using it for business cards, etc.:

    https://blog.evernote.com/2008/11/18/evernote-and-griffin-clarifi/

  2. Rebel

    12/07/2008 at 6:54 am

    I know these guys and all of Griffins products are developed here in the land of free and the brave. Leave to good ole american inginutiy to come up with something so clever. Maybe there’s hope for America yet! Go Griffin!

  3. davidm

    12/07/2008 at 8:13 am

    No comment on the above, since I’m not really into us vs. them.

    Have the cameras in UMPCs really gotten better? I had a Samsung Q1 Ultra, a fairly recent model (which I happily dumped), and it was horrible.

  4. BBusyBookworm

    12/07/2008 at 12:55 pm

    I’ve got the Clarifi case on my iPhone 3G and have to say it definitely helps a great deal with Macro shots, which otherwise always turn out blurry unless you have very strong lighting.

    Having said that, the lens slider can be bit finicky, and you have to remember to check whether its over the camera lens or not when taking a Pic, as it does tend to slide around.

    What’s nice is that the Case has well thought out cut outs for ports, and s slim enough that I don’t really notice it (Until I try to fit it into a Dock and realise the bottom is still on).

    It does come with a Screen Protector in the box as well, which can make it a good deal. I personally ended up taking the protector off as I found it was making my use less precise and comfortable YMMV.

    In the end its a nice case, especially when you pair it with Apps like Evernote, Snaptell Explorer, Book search, etc.

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