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Graft Concepts Leverage protects your iPhone 4 with ease and style
We've seen a lot of iPhone 4 cases here at TUAW. Most thin polycarbonate or TPU cases are pretty much the same -- brute force them on to cover the back and sides. Graft Concepts have taken the thin-polycarbonate case form factor and added something a little different with a top locking latch. Thanks to the Graft Concepts team, we got our hands on a pre-production black and chrome version of their slick looking iPhone 4 case to put through its paces. Design The Leverage takes the form of a bumper-style case, which wraps around the side edges of the iPhone with cut outs for the ports and buttons. It is a single piece of rubberized polycarbonate that joins at the top, locked together by a fancy chrome latch with integrated power button push-through. The latch design makes it easy to get your iPhone in and out of the case, while still holding the case firmly and securely on your iPhone. It looks great just as a bumper, but the Leverage comes with an optional backplate insert that you can combine with the bumper to form a full case with a single cut out for the camera and flash. This modular design gives you the best of both worlds, and depending on your mood or how much protection you want to give your phone, it's really quick and easy to remove or replace the backplate. Protection The combined case gives pretty good all round protection, covering all edges and the back. The case also covers the front edge of the phone meaning that you can place it flat on the screen and the case will keep the glass off the deck. The plastic construction will also offer some impact protection, but I wouldn't fancy dropping it from too high as with most relatively thin cases. The case adds about 1-2 mm thickness to your iPhone, so it's not bulky by any stretch of the imagination. It's also quite grippy to hold, but thankfully doesn't suffer from too much pocket torsion when you're trying to pull it out of your jeans pocket. %Gallery-134226% Verdict Bearing in mind its pre-production nature, we like the chromed locking latch (that's also available in a matte finish), which gives it something a bit different in the design stakes and functions well in practice. It provides decent protection and we like that you can swap between just a bumper and a full back case in about 5 seconds. If you're looking for a case for your iPhone 4 in either GSM or CDMA flavors, then the US$60 Leverage is just a little bit different. If the production case matches the quality of the version we tested, the Leverage will be a great choice.
Graft Concepts' fancy Leverage iPhone case is probably fancier than your fancy case (video)
So you spent all of that money on an iPhone 4 -- do you really want to cover it up with some discount protection? Graft Concepts' new case is nearly as snazzy as the handset it was designed to protect. The Leverage is made out of polycarbonate with a matte finish and features a metal latch that secures it to the handset. The case is up for sale now, at a fittingly pricey $60. You can pick up additional backplates for $7 a piece.
The five classes of guilds
Blessing of Kings does a great job with this post of putting into words (and then extending) the idea of something we've talked about many times before: all guilds are not equal. He separates them into a kind of hierarchical class structure, with "Royalty" (guilds like Stars and Ensidia) at the top of the raiding game, going down to "Aristocracy" (guilds working on hard modes), "Gentry" (guilds who've cleared normal but haven't been able to do hard modes yet), "Bourgeoisie" (guilds working on normal), and the "Proletariat" (casual folks who haven't started raiding). I think he's squeezed things down a bit farther than he should -- I would call the "Bourgeoisie" level guilds still working on Ulduar and Naxx normal fights, as I think there are quite a few of those out there. But his points are strong -- there are bands of raiding guilds, partly by Blizzard's design and partly by mere fact that people approach the content in their own ways.
World of Warcraft, as seen on television
Our favorite game made not one but two big appearances on TV this past week. First up, looks like the writer of TNT's Leverage (that Dan already interviewed a while back) is wasting no time getting his characters to fly the Horde flag, as you can see in the clip above (thanks to Massively for digging that up for us). The writer, John Rogers, told Dan that Blizzard actually vetted the dialogue above, which makes us wonder why they were ok with saying Burning Crusade, but didn't want to mention the second expansion by name. Maybe the episode was filmed so long ago that the name hadn't quite been confirmed yet.And in other television news, we're told World of Warcraft made an appearance as a category on Jeopardy this week. We don't have video of that one (yet), but you can see a quick teaser over on Jeopardy's webpage that mentions the game as a category. World of Warcraft has of course appeared in the game show before as an answer, but this time around, there was a whole column of questions about it. If you see video anywhere online, let us know, and we'll add it here to the post.
TNT's Leverage is 'For the Horde'
I love Leverage. The newish modern-day thinking man's action show from TNT offers a weekly look at a gang of crooks doing a little bit of bad for a lot of good. It's actually a lot like the tabletop RPG Shadowrun, if you've ever heard of that game. The show is appealing on a number of levels, but the producers obviously know the demographic one of its characters attracts. The man in the snazzy suit above is Aldis Hodge, playing the part of Alec Hardison - resident geek and computer/technology expert. And, apparently, a member of World of Warcraft's Horde.In this week's episode of the show Hardison bonds with an officer worker in a corporate megaplex he's infiltrating. We actually got a preview of this clever schtick in an interview done by the folks at WoW Insider. They spoke with episode writer John Rogers about the episode last month. You can catch full episodes of the show over on TNT's website, but if you just want to check out the full clip of their exchange you can do so below the cut. Now I want to know what class he rolls.
TNT's Leverage is the latest stretch-o-vision victim
Anyone watching Tuesday's episode of Leverage (The Wedding Job) probably quickly noticed that instead of the crisp 720p image we've become accustomed to, it was being delivered in TNT's disorienting stretch format, taking a 4x3 picture and adjusting whatever it thought we weren't looking at to fill the gaps. Why TNT still uses this at all in 2009 is beyond us, but we got in contact with Executive Producer (and blogger) John Rogers to find out what happened. We still don't know the details, but he let us know via email that it was a simple case of someone transmitting the wrong version, so we should be able to look forward to properly formatted TV for the rest of its run (let it be known: if someone screws up The Closer, there will be consequences & repercussions.) Read - AVS Forum Read - Kung Fu Monkey
Television writer is for the Horde!
John Rogers résumé is long and varied. Physics graduate, television writer and avid online gamer. He's credited with writing an early draft of the "Transformers" movie and creating "The Jackie Chan Adventures" animated series. His latest endeavor is the new action series "Leverage," premiering tonight on TNT at 10/9c. Every week on the new show a group of professional cons takes down corrupt authority figures using their unique skills. And they're not above using World of Warcraft to get the job done.Wait...what?You see while reading John's blog, I saw a single line about an upcoming episode of "Leverage" having a WoW reference in it, joining the ranks of "How I Met Your Mother," "Big Bang Theory" and "Stargate Atlantis." I contacted him to find out more about his new show, his love of the game and further confirmation that WoW is the new golf.
