I hope this phone case is better for selfies

The Selfix phone case is a classic example of an idea that’s great in theory but falls apart in practice.

that it iPhone 17 Pro case With a circular screen on the back. It mirrors the middle of your phone’s home screen, making it easier to take selfies using your phone’s high-quality rear cameras instead of the selfie camera. Nice concept! I hope it works better.

Selfie cameras have come a long way, and the updated sensor in the iPhone 17 series’ front camera is more than capable of good lighting. But there are still ways in which your phone’s rear cameras’ larger sensors and lenses excel: they can shoot slow-motion video, better low-light photos, and more convincing portrait mode photos. The Selfix case makes it all possible – if you can hold it long enough.

The Selfix issue is Pre-order now via Kickstarterwith a full retail price of $129 USD and the backer price is listed at $79 USD. But I have some real hesitation in recommending it even at the discounted early bird price. For starters, it’s huge. I’m working hard here to overcome my biases: I don’t typically use cases, and I’ve just started using the iPhone Air for two weeks. This case on the iPhone 17 Pro always seemed impractical to me. Still: I think it’s unreasonably large. You He does You get a built-in microSD card slot, which is nice. It meets UHS-I, Class 10, U3, and V30 standards, which means you should be able to record 4K video directly to the card without dropping frames provided you have a fast enough card.

My biggest complaint with Selfix is ​​that it doesn’t do the job well. The screen is a circle with a diameter of 1.6 inches, so it naturally cuts off a large portion of the rectangular preview image on your phone’s home screen. It also has some real chunky edges, so the usable screen area is a little smaller than the inside of a paper towel tube. All of this means there’s still some guesswork involved; If you frame your face in the middle of the back screen, you’ll get a selfie with a large empty space above your head.

The Selfix’s screen is touch-sensitive, but I couldn’t tap to focus to work consistently. The unit I tested is labeled “beta”, which may be the culprit here. You need to use the volume keys on your iPhone to take a photo or start recording a video anyway, because the part of the screen that contains the virtual shutter button is cut off. It’s also kind of disconcerting to shoot video and not see any sign of recording starting. For something that’s designed to take the guesswork out of using the rear cameras, there’s still a huge amount of guesswork involved.

Then there are the side effects. The case allows for wired charging, but there are no data connections, which means no wired CarPlay or transferring files to your laptop via USB. There’s a magnetic ring on the back of the case so you can continue to use MagSafe accessories, but there’s no wireless charging. You have to take the bag off to do any of these things.

What’s more, it’s very easy to forget that the rear screen is on when you’re done taking your selfies. As a reminder: It mirrors everything that’s on your phone screen, so you might end up giving the rest of the world a clear view of your banking app or whatever you’re looking at. There’s a dedicated button on the side of the case to turn the display on and off, and when it’s turned on you’ll see a little USB plug icon in the Dynamic Island to let you know an accessory is plugged in. But there’s no constant on-screen reminder that the case is mirroring the screen, and I can see this going wrong in some unfortunate ways.

Look, I love weird phone accessories. I appreciate that the Selfix Case tries to do more than one thing — help you use the rear cameras to take selfies, expand your phone’s storage, and protect your device. I just wish it would perform its main function better.

Photography by Alison Johnson/The Verge