I have a mobile phone. It’s an older model; a Samsung Galaxy A12 I bought in 2020. When I bought the phone, I also bought a protective screen and silicon case.
The silicon case has torn and I want to replace it. I have not been able to fit any place where I can walk in and buy a case for a Galaxy A12. Apparently, five years is like a century in phone years.
So I ordered a cheap phone case for a Samsung Galaxy A12 on Amazon. It arrived and I found I couldn’t fit it on my phone. The new case was about a quarter inch smaller in all dimensions that my original case.
I figured this was a manufacturing defect and that’s what I got for ordering the cheapest model. So I returned it and ordered a phone case from a different company.
The second replacement case arrived today. It’s from a different company. But it has the same smaller dimensions as the previous replacement and I am once again unable to fit it on my phone.
But this second occurrence is causing me to think that the problem may be me.
Is there some trick to putting a phone into a phone case that somehow eludes me?
Am I supposed to use a lot of force to jam the phone into a case that appears to be too small but will eventually stretch to fit?
I have verified I have a Galaxy A12. But were the size changes in the series and I’m getting cases for something like a 2022 Galaxy A12 that won’t fit a 2020 Galaxy A12?
Are there any options where I can walk into a brick and mortar store, hand my phone to an employee, and say “Here, put this into a case that fits it and then I will pay you money”?
Or any advice on fixing my torn phone case? I’ve used superglue to stick the torn parts back together but they just fall apart again in a few days.
Sometimes that’s the case with Samsung products, but the A12 phone only came in one size. They should all have these dimensions for the entire device:
164 x 75.8 x 8.9 mm (6.46 x 2.98 x 0.35 inches)
What model of case did you get on Amazon? Maybe an example could explain where you might have gone wrong.
Out of curiosity, I looked at cases, and Otterbox has a case for less than $6. Otterbox is a big-name maker of cases for all sorts of mobile devices, and generally are not cheap; a high-end case from them for a current iPhone model can be $100. So this is pretty affordable:
I’m not suggesting this as something you should get. It might be too bulky for your needs, or boring, or have some other feature you don’t like. My point is that even the premium manufacturers for cases for your phone model are very affordable. So you definitely have options.
But seeing what you’ve been getting might shed some light on what went wrong here.
You would need an adhesive that is specifically made for silicone, regular adhesives will just slide right off. That’s what silicone is for, so crud won’t stick to it. If you search “glue for repairing silicone” on Amazon, they have a lot of products, the cheapest ones are around $6 (plus tax and shipping unless you are a Prime member) so that may not be a great choice compared to a new case. Repairing even with the best adhesive is often difficult to get right.
As for your replacement case, my Galaxy A13 case is (probably) silicone, anyway it’s clear and rubbery, and if I hold it back to back against my phone, it clearly is the right size. Maybe it depends on how thick the case material is, for how much it will stretch? I don’t know.
This may be a crazy idea, but you could try 3D-printing a custom phone case out of an appropriate material, for example TPU. (I have not tried silicone)
I suspect that you are doing something wrong because both of those cases are highly rated and a skim of the one star reviews aren’t because they don’t fit. Are you 100% sure that you have the model that you think you have? It might be best to do it the old fashioned way and go to an actual store and get an associate to assist you.
not a Samsung person but I do know that some manufacturers make more than one model with the same #, a base & an XL or otherwise named variant. Does Samsung do this & is the phone the larger variant?
I considered the issue that hajario mentioned. So like you said, I checked the settings and confirmed what model I have.
I have also considered the possibility, as I mentioned above, that this model may come in different sizes. I have emailed Samsung but they have not responded.
I have no experience with silicone phone cases. For more ordinary cases, it’s a tight fit and takes some muscle to get on. But the material is not nearly stretchy enough to make up a 1/4" difference in size. A couple mm tops.
Silicone rubber is famously stretchy and bouncy. Until it starts to tear, and then it just snaps. If you are buying new silicone rubber cases, I could imagine them being nearly 1/4" smaller than the phone. And being a right bitch to get on.
If you’re buying non-silicone cases and they’re still 1/4" too small then clearly there is some confusion in some database somewhere about the dimensions of your phone.
Can you confirm the dimensions of your device with no case on it?
At the risk of asking a possibly insulting question, is there any chance your device already has some kind of case on it and the torn silicone was some sort of over-case? If your phone already has some manner of case or rim on it, that would explain the size discrepancy.
I’m really grasping at straws here, but the idea just occurred to me as a super long-shot so I thought I’d share it. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Also, sometimes Amazon will have multiple merchants selling the same item. In that case, they may annoyingly comingle the inventory from each merchant into one big pile… meaning counterfeits could be mixed in there too.
Did you happen to buy from a third party merchant even if it was “shipped from Amazon”?
I assume you separated the front and back parts to make a “phone sandwich” like it shows in one of the pictures and aren’t trying to shove it through the opening in the front?
In my local town center there are several places in which you could
do this (second hand phone and accessory places). I did it ~6 months ago.
(it was quite expensive (£20 iirc) and i suspect I could’ve found a cheaper
place)
The OP’s issue probably isn’t find a phone accessory and repair store. Those are pretty common in the USA.
The challenge would be finding a case in stock for a phone that’s years out of date. Those places don’t tend to carry much inventory besides whatever devices models are new and shiny this month.
Although as @susan said there’s still some skill to that stuff and a good store w a good clueful employee might be real helpful.
