With the press of a button, my face is on the back of my iPhone case, then my colleague Christina's face shows up, followed a picture of someone's puppy I found on Instagram. The case on my iPhone 6 is called the PopSlate and it has an e-paper screen on the back.
Successfully funded in 2013, the PopSlate case is finally shipping to Indiegogo backers starting today. It's been a very long wait. So is the final product worth it?
PopSlate hooked me up with the $129 case to give it a spin. My first thought was: This looks like the YotaPhone, the Russian-made Android smartphone with an e-paper screen on its back.
While the idea is similar, PopSlate is more of passive device. It doesn't have the system-level integration that the YotaPhone does.
The PopSlate looks like your typical iPhone 6 slip-on case; it has cut-outs for the iSight camera, ports and speakers. Pretty standard stuff. The plastic case isn't made from the highest-quality materials, and I wouldn't exactly call it attractive, but I can say the same for a million other cases.
The screen is exactly like the kind you'd find on an e-reader.The screen is exactly like the kind you'd find on an e-reader. That's to say, it only does black and white, it's low-res and it's perfectly visible in direct sunlight.
On the left of the e-paper screen is a microUSB port for charging the display up, and to the right is a tiny little button that controls which image shows up on the e-paper screen. Although the battery lasts 4-7 days, there's no indicator on the case, which means the only cue that it's out of power is if the image doesn't change when you press the tiny button.
The 'Popping' experience
To load pictures — the company calls this "popping" — on the PopSlate case, you need to install the free PopSlate app, sign up for an account and connect the case to your iPhone 6 via Bluetooth.
The app is split into four sections: Home, Explore, New Image and Me. Home shows a feed of "popped" images from all the people you follow. Explore lets you browse images and re-pop them, search for a specific user, or browse through a person's Instagram pics (and pop those). New Image is the camera interface, which lets you take a pic and edit it using Adobe's Creative Cloud (all in black and white, of course). Lastly, the Me section shows all of the images you've popped and whether they're yours own or from others.
IMAGE: POPSLATE/MASHABLE SCREENSHOT
Popping images to the case is as easy as finding a pic and hitting the "pop" button in the upper right corner.
All of this is easy and straightforward enough, but the app isn't without its share of frustrations: The case only stores eight images and there's no easy way to sort the order in which they show up or select a batch of them. The last eight pics in the Me section are the ones that show up on the e-paper screen. There's also no way to wipe all the images at once. Even if you delete all the pics, the case still caches them.
Okay, so you can load images on the back of the case, which is great if you're really into personalization, but what else can the screen display? To tell you the truth, not much else. While
there are plans to integrate the app with IFTTthere are plans to integrate the app with IFTT in the future so that you can automate things like "Everyday at 8 a.m., automatically pop an image of my to-do list or calendar" the feature's not available at launch.
And since you can store only eight images, using the e-paper screen as an e-reader is impractical. There are no notifications. The only kind of "productivity" you can do is manually load an image of, say, a boarding pass, QR code or maybe a membership barcode.
The screen isn't a touchscreen, so if you load a screenshot of a Google Map or subway map, there's no way to enlarge it. Not that you'd want to anyway; the screen's too low-res to begin with.
Close, but no cigar
I really do love the idea of using an e-paper screen on the back of a smartphone as a secondary display, but it needs to have more purpose.
Unlike the YotaPhone's e-paper screen which is integrated with Android, so it can display things like notifications and widgets, the PopSlate is not integrated with iOS. Displaying different pics on the e-paper screen is fun at first and a conversation starter (works every time), but it's a novelty I, personally, could do without.
Now, if PopSlate was a Mophie-style battery case with the e-paper screen, that'd make for a more compelling product. It also would have been more useful if the e-paper screen was a touchscreen, too.
The PopSlate needs to do more with the e-paper screen to justify its $129 price. PopSlate co-founder Greg Moon told me a software update will add more functionality — particularly, better photo management. But right now it does too little. The good news, though: If you've been patiently waiting for your PopSlate to ship, it's finally happening.
PopSlate e-paper iPhone 6 case
The Good
Fun customizable case • E-paper screen is visible in sunlight • Easy to use app • Cool Instagram integration
The Bad
Pricey • Low-res screen • No battery indicator • No automation/productivity features at launch
The Bottom Line
The PopSlate is one of the more innovative iPhone cases out there, but its e-paper display is mostly a novelty right now.
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