Being clumsy and handling expensive smartphones is not a good combination for me. That’s why, for the past decade or so, all of my phones have gone into cases from the moment I took them out of the box. Looking for new case designs is a bit of a side hobby for me, so when I bought my Pixel 5, I followed a hunch and got the navy Gesma TPU case. That hunch paid off big time. I really love it.
So why am I qualified to talk to you about this, you might wonder? Over the last years, I have bought, tried, liked, or dismissed hundreds of TPU cases for my phones. (I love the material for its flexibility and shock absorption.) I have wasted days, nay weeks, checking eBay for new case designs, colors, and brands. I know the cheap and midrange $2-15 case market like the back of my hand. Brands you might have heard of like Spigen, Ringke, Cruzerlite, Caseology, others you might not be familiar with, like IMAK, X-Level, Diztronic, Gviewinn, Tudia, Nillkin, Goospery, Nekeda, plus the generic cases you find under hundreds of names on Amazon and eBay.
I’ve reached a point where I can see a case in a product image and immediately intuit how it’d feel in my hand. That’s how much I’m confident in my experience with this product category. And that’s why when I saw the Gesma case, it immediately reminded me of a navy Diztronic case I’d had several years ago on one of my LG phones and that I loved. So I bought it, and I haven’t taken it off my phone since I got it, nearly six months ago.
The Gesma case looks nice and feels even nicer in the hand. It’s not too thick, not too thin, so my Pixel 5 feels protected without being too chunky. I swear, of all the TPU cases I’ve tried, this one has nailed the thickness balance so perfectly well, that I fear it’s ruined me for future cases. I know I’m gushing over a piece of rubber, but there’s no other way I can explain to you how ideal its protection to thinness ratio is; you have to hold it to understand. (twss x2)
Like most TPU cases, it’s grippy and stays in my hand even when I’m sweating, walking, and tapping on the screen. It has slightly raised lips around the screen and camera for protection, but they don’t disrupt gesture navigation; and there’s a slope below the fingerprint reader to help your finger slide in place. It has perfect cutouts for all the ports and mics on the Pixel 5 and the covered buttons retain their clickiness instead of becoming a soft mush or a hard push. And after all these months with it, this case has handled lots of accidental drops without any damage to itself or my Pixel 5. I can’t see a single scratch or scuff on either.
Case vs Pixel 5 thickness. Not paper thin, not bulky, just perfect.
Honestly, there’s nothing I would change here except make it in more colors besides navy and black — Gesma had a dark green option at one point (like this for the Pixel 4a 5G), but it’s no longer available on Amazon. Still, I find the navy color nice and discreet, without it being a dull black.
I’ve now added Gesma to my list of case makers to check for my upcoming phone, whatever it may be. It sits neatly in my current shortlist along with Gviewinn and IMAK.
