24 hours with Lifeproof's new iPhone 6 plus waterproof case - the "Nuud"

After many months of waiting finally LifeProof has released a limited number of their waterproof iPhone 6 plus case line.

I was lucky to snap one up and express shipped it from the US. It arrived today.

After a few hours use, I made a shocking discovery. LifeProof have made the charging port hideously small. My former iPhone 5’s LifeProof had a somewhat limited size hole but I found a number of cables that fit and made my entire EDC kit around that.

However the iPhone 6 plus LifeProof case will only accept cables “that are originally provided with the product” i.e. the original white cable. I rarely use these cables. They break to often and are too long for my every day needs.  I am now left with a plethora of lightning cables that are only usable for my iPad.

Hmm the hunt is not on for a 10cm narrow cable. Preferably before 27 March as we depart Australia.

UPDATE: on day 3 the two very tiny clips that keep the waterproof door closed over the charging port completely snapped off and were found on my bedroom floor. I super glued them back on, however I no longer have confidence on the waterproof nature of the door. I have requested a replacement from LifeProof.

My first few weeks with the iPhone 6 Plus

My first few weeks with the iPhone 6 Plus

I had been holding on to my iPhone 5, waiting eagerly for the goodies that are announced each September by the doyens of product secrecy and marketing.

Hearing the rumours of a larger iPhone really wetted my appetite. I was weighing up getting one of the larger Samsung Note 4s and immediately wipe any remnants of Samsung's gimmick filled bloatware. Thankfully the iPhone 6 plus was the answer I am looking for.

I conceit that the name of the new device is pretty crappy, most people just call it 'the big one'.

While the size is defiantly the draw point, after working with and using closely, there are other features that have really come to the forefront for me - the battery and the camera being amounts them.

The Camera

I have to admit, I am not a great photographer, Frankie is far more the photographer than I am. Most of the fantastic images we took in Mynamar were taken by Frankie.

The manual or dynamic stabilisation is comparable to my mirror-less Samsung NX1000.

The Battery

Any one who knows me knows that I am very far from my phone - to the point of even having my previous iPhone 5 in its Lifeproof case in the shower with me for music.

This often leads to having a dead phone by noon. Not with the iPhone 6 plus. With a fair among of usage, including streaming musics, push notifications, location services, background activity and constant use I easily have over 70% left at 2:30 in the afternoon. Most days achieving 11-12 hours battery life between charges.

I am now really hanging out for the life proof case for this phone

Honourable mention - the external speaker

It is not a make or break feature of a phone for me. I say phone but I am getting more and more annoyed with actually having to talk to people by telephone. I use this device like many others for the consumption of news, media, sound, podcasts along with communicating with you - the lovely people of the inter webs.

The external speaker located on the base of this phone if big, and LOUD. I can hear the sound better and clearer sitting on my sink in my bathroom, than from a bluetooth speaker in the shower.

The bending thing

I know a lot of hoohar has been made about the 'bending' of the iPhone 6 plus in people's pockets - personally I don't have those issues, mainly because I am not stupid enough to put something that cost over $1000 in my back pocket and sit on it - but hey if you did and it bent. I am sorry to hear that.

My Every Day Carry (EDC)

First up, let’s get it clear, I am not a crazy prepper.

I love my gadgets, and I like to keep them powered!

When some one first sees my Maxpedition Fatty and scoffs, it isn’t usually long before they are back asking if they can use my charger for their phone or do I have a screw driver they can borrow.

I have divided the kit for the purpose of this post into: Tools, Writing, Charging & Cables, Medical & Boo Boo, Wifi and Apple connectors.

In the past I have written before about the kit that I use for overseas travel, such as my iPad Mini in a waterproof LifeProof case along my iPhone 5 also in a LifeProof case.

I know looking at the picture above, it looks like a lot. I assure you, I use almost everything inside this case at least weekly.

So I will run through my different sub groups so you can see what I have:

Tools:

So what I have in this section is:

• A tiny Gerber Multitool. I use the straight blade to open boxes and I really like the spring opening pliers

• Stanley pocket screwdriver set – I like the former factor giving me 4 different heads (2 different sized phillips head, and 2 blade) all in a hard plastic pen body

• Streamlight Stylus Pro torch

• Small water tight container that contains some spare cash and a pair of needle nose tweezers

Writing:

Nothing is worse than needing to take a note, or leave a note such as in the recent case of our trip to Horse Gully Hut - I left an emergency note on our car’s dashboard so people knew were to look for us.

In my daily kit is the following writing items:

• Rite in the Rain spiral bound pad

• Space pen -Mate Black

• Maxpedition Trekker all weather pen

• The last item is a just a generic metal body black ink pen – looks less tactical.

Medical / Boo Boo kit

Firstly, I am sorry for this blurry picture, in this kit is enough things to just make me feel better, rather than cure the ills of the world.

It contains:

Tissues

Panadol x 2 tabs

An alcohol wipe

Gastro stop type pills or mouth dissolvable buttons

The only thing missing from this group is a bandaid that is normally folded inside the container

Now for the most used group of my kit

Charging & Connections

I am an apple boy, not a fanboy but an apple boy – The OS  does what I need.

By gosh does the iPhone and iPad mini chew the juice! Hungry little things.

The above includes:

A YellowStone short iPhone 5 lightning charger

Pebble Smart watch magnetic charger

Fitbit force usb charger

Small “BlueLounge Kii’ that I have shaved down to fit through the charging port of the LifeProof Fre case.

Griffin short usb connection cables – Mini, Micro and large apple connector

Plox 6000mAh usb external battery with inbuilt micro us charger

Belkin extension usb cable

USB power adapter from the iPhone 5s it’s small and easy to carry.

LifeProof Fre 3.5mm audio adapter so I can use headphones with the waterproof case on (the apple EarPods work without using any adapter)

Apple and Wifi converters plus USB and EarPods

Now this group is one that is not used as often, but when it does – it’s a real saver.

The first is the white USB stick - this is a Huawei E355s-2 - one of the most versatile HSPA+ modems I have ever seen. I picked this one up outright from Celcom in Malaysia.  I pop a sim in, plug it into anything with a  USB port - the battery above, the wall charger above etc and it creates a mini wifi network.

I am a massive Amaysim fan here in Australia, in essence they are a 4G reseller of the Optus network. I have 2 accounts with them - my phone is on the 49 unlimited plan - unlimited calls and sms (in AU) with 9gig oData.  The USB stick uses their $99 for 10gig (lasts 365 days or until 10 gig used).

I can not rate them highly enough.

Also above you can see the following

Apple micro USB to Lightning converter

30pin to lightning converter

30pin SD card reader

With three items above I can easily convert any USB micro cable to a lightning charger, I know people will be saying ‘but there is a lightning SD card reader’ yes - but it is longer - on a short cable. I like the compact nature of these 2 items.

EarPods - these fit inside the LifeProof Fre case without a converter

Sandisk 4gig USB stick with tiny micro light - cheap and nasty - about $5.

EDIT: Update March 2015

I have removed some items, either because they no longer work, or are no longer needed.

1. I have upgraded my phone to the iPhone 6 plus, with the Lifeproof Nuud case. Every Lightning cable other than the Apple provided one no longer fits inside the charging port so I have ordered a short genuine Apple cable (30cm)
2. The BlueLounge Kii is gone - see above
3. Fitbit Force replaced with the Fitbit Charge HR and matching cable
4. Plain metal black pen stopped working so was binned and not replaced

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iPhone not accessing gps in flight mode - instantly connects when when deactivated

I just wanted to provide some feedback regarding my experiences while traveling recently using the iPhone as a GPS mapping tracking device.

Throughout the whole trip I was using my iPhone on flight mode and keeping wifi and bluetooth active to allow connections. I sadly discovered that the GPS is either extremely slow or will not connect at all. This particularly annoying and or disasterious to the use of  http://www.inreachdelorme.com/product-info/inreach-smartphone.php or  https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/motionx-gps/id299949744.

Packing list for Burma (Myanmar) and Malaysia (Redang Island)

As the count down begins to the big trip (roughly 30 days) through Burma (Myanmar) and Malaysia – Kuala Lumpur and Redang Island, I am putting together my packing list. As you will see most of my packing is actually mostly gadgets & electronics. I LOVE THEM.

Packs

Kathmandu 70L convertible ( roller with hidden backpack straps)

Kathmandu 15L Backpack ( day pack) – came with the 70L

I am still tossing up whether to get the Kathmandu 30L ‘Transit’ Day pack and use it as carry on. Additionally it has a secret compartment for my MacBook Air. The lady at Kathmandu kindly talked me out of buying it on the weekend, instead to wait until September when the 40% member discount starts.

Clothes

2 x neutral coloured ‘zip off’ travel pants for comfort.

3 x T-shirts

3 x singlets

3 x shorts

1 x Swimming Shorts

7 x Underwear

2 x socks

1 x boat shoes ( these are my every day, go anywhere, comfortable traveling shoes- I hate thongs / flip-flops )

1 x pair decent going out shoes (never know when a club night calls)

Cameras

Go Pro Hero 3 Black

Go Pro Hero 3 Silver

Samsung NX1000

Laptop

MacBook Air 11in Mid 2011 128gb

Phone / Communications

iPhone 5 64gig in Lifeproof Fre Waterproof Case

Delorme InReach enabled GPS tracker and 2 way communicator

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This is really just gear nerd porn, I want to be able to update my family and friends (and you through this blog) on our adventures. Also it would allow me to fire off a SMS style message to my parents who are meeting us for part of the trip, if any plans change. I am still working through some bugs on the posting map locations here. At this stage posting by email is my only option – this does not produce a ‘sexy’ post – more a quick and dirty text only post with links to an external map.

Where possibly I will endeavour to get a local sim – hopefully with prepaid data – in Malaysia this is no problem, Burma I think will be a different story.

Tablet

iPad Mini 64gig in folio case

Power

Solar

Goal Zero Guide 7 Solar panel

Goal Zero Guide 10+ AA Battery Pack with 4 x AA batteries x 2

Portable Power

In addition to the the Goal Zero Guide10+ I have a PLOX 6000mAh battery pack

PIXO USB Camera Battery Charger from Goal Zero – can charge the NX1000 battery from Solar, USB port or via a wall socket.

I know it sounds like a lot of power, but the guiding premise of my whole kit is that it can all be charged from the wall or from the Goal Zero Panels on the road. I am never quite sure of power availability, reliability or how safe it is (spikes). The only item I can not charge by solar from the above kit is the MacBook Air. Goal Zero does have products that could do it easily, but my budget and weight allowance doe not stretch that far this time. Their Sherpa 50 would be great with some folding panels, I just can’t convince the other half to allow me to get that one.

Have I forgotten anything? Comments ??

Related articles

A massive 6 months!

Laguna Resort, Redang Island, Malaysia

My first dive

If you like my content please also like my facebook page facebook.com/wadeabout

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YT: wade85

IG: wadeabout

New Toys

Since our last holiday a few new electronic toys have been added to my pack.

• We sold our 2 x GoPro 2s
  • Replaced them with 1 x Go Pro 3 black and 1 x Go Pro Silver.
• Sold our Spot Tracker
  • Replaced with a Delorme InReach 2 way GPS tracker / communicator
• My underwater point and shoot was lost during our trip to Penguin Island, off the Western Australian Coast.
  • Point and shoot replaced with a combination of my iPhone 5 (now in waterproof LifeProof Fre case) and my new Samsung NX1000 Mirrorless 2/3rd DLSR
• iPad 2 given to my partner as I updated
  • Updated to iPad Mini