There is just something about a clean cut, well designed case that keeps your iOS devices looking streamlined straight across the board. What helps that cause even more is the extremely reasonable prices for these cases. We were extremely happy to receive the Poetic Atmosphere series for the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini. I'm actually a little disappointed that we couldn’t get you this review sooner. So let me make it up to you by taking a closer look at both cases together. Hit the jump to see if the clean look and price point is worth your time, or whether the Atmosphere is just another dust collector of a case.

Well, as you can see from the pictures above, we weren’t lying about the clean, simple design. Nothing is included inside the box except for the case. In fact, the iPad cases we received just came in a ziplock style bag. Hopefully that is not the normal shipping method. It seems hit or miss with these case companies to include any extras such as screen protectors. The Poetic Atmosphere series is one of the nicest cases that will give you that great first impression feeling. Being a case junkie, you would think “yeah yeah sure”. It feels great in the hand, makes for easy one handed usage and keeps a very slim profile.

And then there's the price. If you shop on Amazon, you're looking to pay around $10 for the iPhone 5 and $13 for the iPad mini Atmosphere cases.

The Atmosphere series, which comes in gray, red, orange, and white, has a transparent frosted backing and sides that are made out of a polycarbonate material. The colored edges and boarders of the case is TPU that gives a nice firm grip in the hand while keeping the phone looking really sharp. All four corners of the case have these little raised bumps which will keep the case from sliding around multiple surfaces. This feature would also prevent scratches to the backside. This design feature is not present on the iPad mini take into account. The iPad mini case is simply a snap on design only.

Taking a look at the top of the iPhone case, we see a covered sleep/wake button. Most cases we have reviewed in the past have had stiff tactile feel to them when the button is covered. However, the Atmosphere case doesn’t have this problem as it gave fantastic tactile feedback. The iPad mini Atmosphere case doesn’t have a covered button. With the mini case being just a snap on, sometimes it was difficult to find and press the button. This is just fetching for a negative. 

The bottom of the iPhone case has a wide opening and doesn’t have separate cutouts. In our experience, most cases with one big opening have been compatible with 3rd party accessories. We won’t be able to test what accessories you might be using so please leave a message in the comments section for us to check your accessory possibly. I’ve tried multiple headphones and all have worked just fine. The front side bottom TPU area is very flimsy and could of just been left off the case completely. However the area didn't seem to feel saggy unless you pressed down at it, but who does that.

On both cases, the volume buttons are both covered up as well. Even with the tiny volume buttons on the iPhone case, they performed equally to the sleep/wake buttons tactile feedback. Very impressive. The buttons give the same click sound as having no case on the phone. The mini case also gave great feedback. The mute/silent switch was easy to get to with the generous cutouts. I’m personally not a fan of the camera cutout area showing the aluminum on the iPhone case, but I have seen worse. It just looks much cleaner with a simple pill shaped cutout. Regardless, we haven’t seen to many cases for the iPhone 5 that give flashback and washed out photos.