It doesn't take a doctored semiotician to realize that personal digital assistants, the Palms, the Visors, the iPaqs on our belts and in our bags, have become status symbols in the new century. Suggest a meeting time with colleagues or a dinner date with friends and watch everyone whip out their various palm computers. After you've dropped five Benjamins on your new PDA, the utilitarian case or cover it comes with just doesn't seem good enough. But there are so many choices: soft, padded, and colorful cases in cutting-edge synthetics, swanky brushed aluminum, the engineered precision of titanium, faux or real leather. If you want to go all out, to turn even the most jaded gadgetheads at your next soirée or business conference, you want the fashion statement of Italian leather. You want an Orbino.
Orbino cases ($150, currently available only for Palm V and m500 ) are all about style. Even the "out-of-box experience" is... well ...an experience. The printed black-on-black sleeve protects a silver box that opens to a gray-on-gray printed cover card, under which is found tissue paper that parts to reveal (finally!) your Orbino. The case itself is near awe-inspiring. Hand-tooled in the Italian village of Tolentino, the leather and craft that goes into these cases is the same as that found in Italian shoes and sports car interiors. The locally tanned calfskin is finished using a polishing technique known as "glass glazing," creating the smoothest, richest colored, most sensual leather you've ever seen or felt.
While the Orbino is undoubtedly a fetish object, one that some will find pretentious and silly (OK, so the included soft cloth case to protect the Orbino is a bit over the top!), it is not all style over substance. The case really does work well with your Palm. The buttons on the front of your Palm are covered by a leather strip that duplicates the device's button icons so they can be identified and pressed without having to remove the Palm from the case. Tiny magnets in the leather-reinforced lid keep it securely closed when not in use. Metal side flanks not only look good, but also protect your Palm from getting beat up inside your luggage or coat pocket. A slot cut in the base of the Orbino allows you to dock your Palm in its cradle without having to remove it from the case.
At $150, the Orbino is not for everyone. But then, whoever though the titanium cases that sell for $100 would be such a huge success? If you've got the means, and want a case that is as well-engineered and smartly designed as the Palm it protects and glorifies, the Orbino is worth the investment.
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