Rhinoshield Phone Case: First Thoughts

I ordered a RhinoShield case on Black Friday when it was on sale, and then one thing led to another. After a bunch of tweaking, the phone feels pretty good to use now, basically satisfied, so I’ll sum it up here.

RhinoShield is a Taiwanese manufacturer that specializes in phone cases. The Chinese brand name is “犀牛盾” (Rhino Shield). They have a Taobao store, but Google Pixel products aren’t available there—you have to go to the official website.

The RhinoShield case I recommend is the Solid Suite. This case lets you customize a lot of things, including the color and even the button colors, all according to your own taste. The official site also supports printing your own designs.

I bought white with red buttons, which feels a bit like the Pixel 2 XL Panda. Actually, that’s exactly the direction I was going for.

Another feature of the RhinoShield case is its strong impact resistance—you can see lots of shock-absorbing ridges inside the case. But the case is originally all white, and I felt it was still a bit far from the “Panda” color scheme I wanted.

So I bought a skin. Normally you could buy a Dbrand skin and stick it directly onto the case, but I recommend a knockoff brand on Taobao called 机肤 (sounds like a translation of the Dbrand name). It basically has everything Dbrand has, and it’s cheaper.

I bought a bottom skin and stuck it on directly, but the fingerprint hole didn’t seem to match, so I had to take a small knife and slowly carve it out. In the end, some details looked ugly. Later I realized I didn’t need to carve at all—just heat it with a hair dryer and stretch it forcefully into place, and there probably wouldn’t be this detail flaw.

Looking at the finished product, it matches the panda color scheme on the actual phone back. The phone back has a Dbrand skin, while the case next to it has a Taobao 机肤 skin—doesn’t it feel the same?

Besides skins, the RhinoShield case has another accessory you can equip: a clip-on wide-angle/macro lens.

There are two generations of RhinoShield Lens. The first generation had more issues; the second generation supports 4K recording, has less distortion, and uses a new coating, so it should be more perfect.

Buying on the official site, you can wait for discounts—up to 40% OFF.

The lens is quite refined, and they give you a pouch and a protective cap. The lens is also detachable: unscrew the top part and the bottom is the macro lens; put the top part on and it becomes the wide-angle lens.

Installing the lens requires adding a frame inside the case. This frame perfectly supports RhinoShield’s own cases—just press it in, since the slot is already reserved.

Installing the lens is just a matter of twisting it on; the mount is obvious.

The finished product looks like this.

The macro lens.

I did a quick test. First, macro:

Then wide-angle. The first shot is without the lens, the second with it.

You can see there’s still some distortion, but the edges are a bit better. Considering the price, it’s already great value.

If we’re talking about the pinnacle of clip-on phone lenses, it’s still Moment lens—distortion is handled better, but it’s expensive. The wide-angle costs $99, the telephoto is also $99, and you also need to buy Moment’s ugly case. But according to people on Reddit, the RhinoShield case’s lens mount supports Moment Lens—meaning you can mount a Moment lens on the RhinoShield mount. Looks like there’s room for better expansion in the future.

Overall, after getting the whole RhinoShield set, I feel quite satisfied. So many advantages:

• Good drop protection
• Supports lens mount
• Customizable button colors
• Customizable phone appearance via skins
• Supports lanyard hole (damn, this is crucial)
• Frequently discounted

And as long as you stick with RhinoShield cases in the future, the lens mount will always be there, so your accessories can be used longer. Why not? Although this lens still has a gap compared to a professional DSLR, considering the Pixel 3 XL’s own photography is already excellent, a macro for small objects and a wide-angle for landscapes are both nice—at least much more portable.

The RhinoShield official website ships via Taiwan Post after purchase. The speed is about 5 days, it’s trackable, and you won’t get taxed. Highly recommended.

After all this fiddling, I’m probably completely satisfied with Pixel 3 XL accessories and won’t tinker anymore.