Gadgets: An iPhone case you can design for yourself

Element Case, a maker of iPhone cases, wants to play mechanic to your designer. The company is offering a customized version of its Vapor Comp and Vapor Pro cases, which encircle your iPhone with a metal frame. You pick the colors of the frame, the accents, the screws and the backing plate.

The frame is made of anodized aluminum, available in 14 colors and a variety of finishes, and is lined with shock-absorbing bumpers. The two customizable models have six parts, including the power button and frame accents, that can be ordered in different colors.

The covers for the back of the phone are available in 18 combinations of colors and materials such as Ultrasuede, carbon fiber and polycarbonate.

The base price of the Vapor Comp is $100, and the Vapor Pro is $130, the major difference being that the Comp uses more polycarbonate plastic in its frame. But you will have to spend more for customization. Choosing the most expensive options pushed the price of the Comp to $150 and the Pro to $165.

Swim training in a pool takes enough concentration without trying to keep track of your laps and statistics. Garmin's new fitness watch, the Swim, is made specifically for use in a pool and can log laps; tell what strokes were used on each lap; and record pace, distance and calories burned.

The watch, which costs $150, is a bit bigger than the average chronograph, but much sleeker than Garmin's open-water GPS watches like the Forerunner 910XT.

To use the watch, you manually enter the length of the pool. Once in the water, you hit the Swim and Start buttons. The watch is supposed to record laps and recognize if you are swimming freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly.

The instructions say steady strokes are required for an accurate reading. The company said that when the former Olympian Misty Hyman tried recently, the recording was flawless.