With a color Treo 680, you get plenty of that staple of high fashion, flauntability. You did buy your 680 in color? Well, if you got it, by all means flaunt it. A crimson or a copper, or even an arctic Treo 680 inside a boring black case can hardly be described as flaunty. We won’t even discuss the graphite version. How gray, unadventurous. down right uncolorful!

Seidio’s Super Slim Hard Case, the crystal one, aims to fix that. It encourages you to flaunt the bold (or not) color of your 680, whether copper, crimson, or arctic, by not covering it up. You could flaunt the graphite one, too, I suppose, but who’d care?

Of course you could also brandish your crimson 680, without any case on it, but that risks all manner of potential damage to the finish. In a case, the Treo’s protected. With Seidio’s crystal version of their Super Slip Hard Case, your favorite color gleams out for all to appreciate, while the Treo’s finish stays protected from many types of unpleasantry.

As for me. I picked crimson because, well, just because it’s not gray. After making the purchase decision right as Palm withdrew the colors from their website store, however, I didn’t see any red. So I shopped, agonized, and scrounged for three weeks till I finally got what I wanted off Ebay, an unlocked crimson model, new in the box. The colors quickly vaporized, snapped up excruciatingly high prices, and scarcifying as the days wore on. I paid a premium – the cost of waiting around too long – but my sore wallet is vindicated by the gorgeous crimson PDA that now brightens up my desk. Meanwhile, Palm cooked up a deal with AT&T, and the colors are available again as Cingular-slash-AT&T phones.

Usability

The Super Slim is just that. Very much so. Weighing in at half an ounce, it comes in a plastic baggie as two simple halves of a funny shaped clamshell. To install it, lay the Treo in the bottom half and snap the top into place by squeezing it at the corners and around the edges. If you need directions, check Seidio’s online PDF instruction sheet.

The Super Slim Hard Case comes in two flavors: Crystal, reviewed here, and Black Rubberized, which is what the instruction sheet refers to. The two models work the same way.

A big issue with cases is the usability of the Treo while it’s inside. The point is: Do you have to remove the Treo from the case to use it? Seidio has this one figured out. The Super Slim case’s plastic clamshells have cutouts for everything Treo. That includes the camera, which nestles in a form-fitted, round-cornered window, the IR port on top and the Ring/Vibrate switch next to it, plus all of the left-side buttons, the entire keyboard, the charge and sync cable connectors on the bottom, and the earphone jack.

The right side of the case has a cutout with a thumbnail slot (thoughtful!) for the 680’s SD Card access door, so you can open the door to insert or change the SD Card without removing the case. Nice.

The screen is also cut out of the plastic. There’s no door. That means your Treo’s touch screen stays touchable – so you can operate the device – but it also stays susceptible to flying objects, scratches, and other hazards that I’d rather not detail, for fear of taunting the Gremlins in Charge of Treo Screen Disasters.

Protection

Except for its screen, the 680 stays pretty safe behind the Hard Case’s hard plastic. The plastic’s only 1.2 millimeters thick, but it flexes just a little, and the company says it won’t break easily. No way I’m dropping my 680 to test that, however.

The plastic shell will probably protect your treasure from scrapes, bumps and flying objects that miss the screen (and keyboard). I strongly recommend using one of those gluey plastic screen protectors with this case. The Boxwave protector is as clear as Seidio’s case, and it has enough heft to offer some protection from abrasion. Whatever screen protector you choose, the things are much more expendable than Treo screens.

The Super Slim Hard Case comes off of the Treo as easily as it goes on. Its tiny clips give up their grip after firm pressure on the seams where the case snaps shut. Even so, I wouldn’t expect many accidental partings. It’s a safe bet the hard plastic isn’t going to withstand too much abuse and abrasion before it sports a few scratches. Take heart and buy a new case. Those abrasions could have landed on the Treo.

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