Road rage
The folks at Otter Products offer, as proof of the box's strength, the photograph you see in Figure E. In the picture we see a rugged jeep parked atop an Otter Box. It makes quite an impressive visual.

FIGURE E


The Otter Box Web site offers this visual proof of the box's strength. Roll over picture for a larger image.

However, I wanted to see this for myself. To test the Otter Box's assertions of indestructibility, I would face it off against my 1990 Chevy Lumina. Once again, my lunchmeat would be standing in for my PDA lest anything unfortunate happen.

In the parking lot of my apartment complex, I monitored the experiment as my assistant pulled the vehicle's front, right tire up onto the Otter Box, as you can see in Figure F.

FIGURE F


The Otter Box strains under the pressure of my Chevy Lumina. Roll over picture for a larger image.

As the tire rolled up onto the box, I was stunned by the sound of two loud pops. A moment later the car rolled off, and I picked up the Otter Box to examine the results. Two jagged cracks had formed in the fiber-glass-reinforced ABS resin, and the closed cell neoprene o-ring had snapped.

The bologna, however, was untouched.

Analysis
Did the Otter Box fail the crush proof test? Since this article first appeared in PalmPower magazine, I've been contacted by Greg Ward at Otter Products. He expressed surprise that the box cracked during my experiment. He assured me that the photo on the company's Web site had not been doctored at all, and the jeep really had driven over the box without it sustaining any damage. He did feel bad about the box failing my experiment, though, and was kind enough to send me a replacement.

The point we should focus on is that even after suffering that initial structural damage, the box did not completely cave in. It's still basically intact (though no longer watertight). If my PDA had been in there it would have emerged unscathed, just like the bologna.