The Monarch is fancy and tough? How can that be?
Urban Armor Gear Monarch Review – Is it really 5 layers?
(Click for full table)
The Urban Armor Gear (UAG) Monarch is a big, fancy case. And it is suppose to be tough. Fancy and tough. Seems like an odd combination but Urban Armor Gear makes it work. Visually, the stand out feature for the Monarch is the back in our opinion.
The texture on the case makes the iPhone easier to handle, especially on the larger 7 Plus or 6s Plus. There’s one design aspect that we’re not big fans of and the marketing fluff on this case is quite bad. Or great? Depending on how you interpret it?
If you’re looking for a similar case, check out the X-Doria Defense Lux. The Defense Lux is as large as the Monarch but features an aluminum bumper. The Monarch is currently #3 on our Top 10 Slim iPhone 7 Case list so to find out what tops this case.
Design – The Monarch has it all! Leather, metal and plastic!
For design, the Monarch is a tad thicker than the average iPhone case but slimmer. All the fancy layers that UAG lists out also increase the weight of the case as it sits around 54 g with the average case being around 39 g.
The Monarch has 5 layers of protection which include an armor frame (feels like plastic), leather, a polycarbonate shear plate, allow metal hardware and impact resistant rubber. Now one of these layers seems a little useless to us regarding protection. Can you guess which one?
It’s the metal alloy hardware. We don’t think that’s going to do much in terms of protection. In fact, the metal alloy hardware is actually it’s own layer because it goes through the entire case.
The case will wear well as the leather portion won’t make any contact with a flat surface, even during drops. The texture of the case is awesome as the edges have a honeycomb design that enhances the grip. The back of the case has lots of bumps and ridges for your fingers to rub against.
[divider][/divider]
Protection – 2x Drop Tested? What does that really mean?
For protection, the UAG Monarch is going to provide your iPhone with great day-to-day protection from average drop heights. What? Only average? Well, the 2x drop protection doesn’t equate to 2x the drop height. It equates to UAG dropping the case 52 times at 4 ft to achieve Mil-Std 810G drop rating instead of 26 times.
So technically UAG isn’t lying about the 2x drop protection, it’s just that we’ve interpreted incorrectly. Silly consumer, this is your fault, not ours.
Does that bother you? How UAG presents the 2x drop protection? Doesn’t it just seem a little shady? What do you guys think?
As you can see in the video, we dropped our own iPhone’s in the case a multitude of times from different heights and the iPhone is fine!
[divider][/divider]
Functionality – The iPhone 7 handles very well in this case
-
- UAG Monarch – Fancy and grippy
For functionality, we didn’t have any issues accessing the iPhone inside the case. The buttons are nice to use but you can see the iPhone through the buttons. The camera cutout is big enough that it doesn’t get in the way of the flash and you can use whatever lighting cable you want with the UAG Monarch. We did the UAG Monarch extra points because of its unique design.
Also, UAG makes this case compatible for the iPhone 6s Plus as they’ve included a cutout for the headphone jack. Which is great for iPhone 6 Plus users but people with the iPhone 7 might be a little annoyed.
[divider][/divider]
Have questions for our Urban Armor Gear Monarch Review? Please ask them below, or on our Facebook page or our About Us page. To stay up to date on everything we’re doing, check out our Twitter and Instagram feeds!
