Searching for a good cover for a brand new iPhone 5, I had to do a lot of searching, since most iPhone 5 covers do not meet these three minimum requirements :

1- anonymity : it should not be too easy for others to see that I am holding an iPhone, so the Apple logo must be covered (the cover should preferably be plain black, distinguished in design and not too bulky)

2- small cut-out for the rear-camera : different from iPhone 3G(S) and iPhone 4(S) covers, most iPhone 5 covers have an extremely large cut-out for the rear-camera – this should be considered a design failure, since there is no technical need for this and it means that there will be two differently colored materials from the back of the iPhone visible in the cut-out… which looks extremely un-stylish…

3- ports & screen protection : the ports (audio headphone jack and lightning cable port) should be covered to not gather dust or sand, and the screen should be protected from accidental scratching (without having to turn to a flip-case design)

Luckily, during my elaborate search I found the solution(s) for the third requirement :

– the best ‘dust stopper’ is by far the “(unbranded) iPhone 5 Combined Headset and Lightning Dust Stopper“, because it’s flexible/elastic and you will not easily loose it since it stays fixed to the iPhone (thought the headphone jack) when you have to unplug it for charging

– probably the best ‘screen protector’ I’ve come across is the “Colorfone Screen Guard (Clear) for iPhone 5“, because it leaves the screen colors and sharpness intact, it has  extremely minimal cut-outs (for the menu-button, the front-speaker and the front-camera) and it took little effort to place without bubbles or dust-particles

The first two requirements however where too much for most cases, including my initially preferred brands like Belkin, Marware, STM and Griffin (and other ones like Kensington, Macally, Incase, Incipio, Gear4, Muvit, Rocketfish, Ozaki and Xqisit). So I ended up comparing these five iPhone 5 cases :

– Speck CandyShell for the new iPhone (black)

– SwitchEasy Tones for iPhone 5 (black)

– Artwizz SeeJacket for iPhone 5 (black)

– Terrapin Protector IP5 (black)

– iGadgitz TPU Cover for iPhone 5 (black)

And the winner is…

even though all of the five cases tested (or rather : compared) are good products, and you might personally favor another case…

…my ‘best buy’ choice goes to the iGadgitz TPU Cover for iPhone 5 (black) because it it without a doubt the best value for money at only 1 GBP (ca. 1,50 euro), it is not bulky in any way, it fits tightly, the design is very chic, and it even has a screen protector film included (with rather minimalistic cut-outs)

my full comparison of these five iPhone 5 Covers is available here :

Note : judging from online reviews, I had high hopes for the Speck CandyShell and SwitchEasy Tones : they might provide slightly better protection than the iGadgitz Cover, but the very complete SwitchEasy Tones turns out to not be black at all (despite the name) and it’s tiny buttons are rather uncomfortable in use …and the Speck CandyShell turns out to look rather cheap due to low production quality and there’s a design fault since the perforation for the speakers doesn’t line up (which might even degrade the audio quality)…