Otterbox Defender for Blackberry Curve

After almost 3 years with Nextel and their rugged phones, I jumped ship and joined the Blackberry camp.  This switch was mostly due to coverage issues, but there were some features available with a Blackberry that I didn't have with Nextel.

I own a small communications cabling company, and am frequently in environments where I would be concerned that the relatively delicate Blackberry might get damaged.  While doing some research on available holsters, I came across the Otterbox Defender case.  It sure looks rugged enough in the pictures on the manufacturer's web site - www.otterbox.com - and the available black/yellow color scheme fit right in as a replacement for my Nextel i580 with it's diamond plate panels.  After using it for 3 months now, I can say that the Defender case offers all the protection I could expect - leaving only the trackball of the Blackberry Curve exposed.

For those of you not familiar with the Defender case, it consists of 3 layers of protection - a clear membrane that covers the front and back of the Curve (including the screen, keyboard and camera lens), a hard plastic layer that snaps on over the clear membrane, and a rubber layer that fits over the hard plastic layer.

Unfortunatley, the clear membrane covering the camera lens makes the camera all but useless.  When I originally contacted Otterbox about this problem, their customer service representative indicated that he was unaware of any simlar reports.  I later followed-up by submitting a trouble ticket on their web site, and received an acknowledgment of receipt, but no contact from them beyond that.  Yesterday (7 weeks after submitting the trouble ticket) I called Otterbox to again try to get this problem fixed.  Though they say that some others have also reported the problem, they offered no solution other than to cut a hole in the membrane, which would void the warranty.  And when I asked for a replacement membrane as a possible solution, they refused.

I am posting this to alert others to the problem BEFORE they make a purchase.  So if you're considering an Otterbox Defender case for your device, keep this in mind.

Below is a composite picture - the left side taken with the thoroughly-cleaned membrane in place, the center taken with the membrane removed, and the right side take with the membrane from a Defender case for the Pearl covering the lens.  All original pictures were taken at a resolution of 1600 x 1200, cropped to a size of 360 x 480, and merged together.  No other editing was done.  You be the judge.