Smartphones often don’t live up to their names for travelers spending a significant time in foreign countries – SIM chips are hard to change, roaming charges are expensive, and data fees are even more so.
A new Kickstarter has emerged this weekend that attempts to solve this traveler’s dilemma: the SIMPLcase.
Touted as a “minimalist iPhone case for travelers,” the case is indeed minimalist – for a traveling techno geek!
Wrapped in the low-profile .5mm case is the coup de grace: a multiple slot SIM storage space with an easy-to-use eject tool to insert the appropriate country’s SIM card.
The main advantage here is the savings enjoyed by using a local-country SIM card. No more roaming charges and no more data absurdities – it’s all local at the local rate.
In addition, the case allows storage for multiple SIM cards, preventing randomly losing one of these tiny-but-yet-vital communication facilitators. After all, SIM cards are smaller than the size of a fingerprint, which makes them easy to lose – and annoying to replace.
A clever slot in the back of the case provides the added functionality of a low-profile stand for hands-free viewing. Rather than using a complex hinge, the case employs a credit card or membership card as the stand leg. Drop it in place, and the phone now props up on its own.
Other fun features include a bit of “travel wisdom in every case:”
For the love of travel, we thought it would be fun to add a travel related quote or fact inside each SIMPLcase. We’d love our Backers to message us or comment on our Kickstarter page as to their favorite saying. If we like it too, we might use it in production. So, send us your words, limited to around 140 characters (yep, just like a Tweet). Keep it clean, and reference the source if you can.
The Tnooz TCritics are already chomping at the bit to get their nomadic hands on a test copy for review – we’ll keep you posted!
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About Nick Vivion
Can someone please make these for all phones. But here’s a hint. Double the number of sim card slots and make them work for both SIMs and MicroSD cards….
That’s an idea that I like!
Ofcourse, this all assumes that the individual has an unlocked iPhone. Which, presumably, a lot of us do not. I’d love to use my iPhone with local SIMS, but alas, they don’t work because it’s carrier locked.
True, Stephen, but fortunately, once you get out of North America, carrier locking isn’t nearly the problem… I wonder where their launch target market is located….
I would definitely see the pick up on this outside of the US…
Great idea! How do you get a test sample? What’s the price? And, how do you order them?
They have them on the Kickstarter, so that’s where you’d go to support them! The product doesn’t yet exist…
We successfully funded SIMPLcase on Kickstarter back in late March. We are happy to report that we’re proceeding according to schedule and should be delivering production units to our backers by mid June, and making SIMPLcase available for normal retail soon thereafter.
Great suggestion to offer both SIM + micro SD card storage support, and it’s something we’d look into doing for appropriate smart phone models, aside from the iPhone, which doesn’t have expandable memory.
As soon as we have production SIMPLcases available, we’ll be sure to send some to Nick here at tnooz for some hands on evaluations.
Best of luck guys. Remember there is a number of us routing for you because we are simply tired of the sim card shuffle!
Cheers
Thanks Timothy!
The SIM card shuffle, eh? Hope that doesn’t look anything like the Harlem Shuffle, lol