Customized

Right around the time I ordered my iPhone, I saw a picture on a style blog of one that had its glass back swapped out for a metal one. I liked it, thought about it for a bit, and decided to order one for myself. It looks like this:

The back is held on by two extremely tiny screws in the bottom edge. They require a special star-pointed screwdriver, which you can get for a couple of bucks on eBay (that's what I did). The back came from a place in Hong Kong, and took about a week and a half to arrive. I got a weird-looking tracking number that is actually for the US Postal Service, and for a couple of days nothing came up when I entered it, then it showed up and became trackable.

The back panel couldn't be easier to replace: undo the screws (have a plastic cap or something around that you can put them in, since they're so small they would be easily lost), slide the back up a few millimeters, and lift it off the phone. The screws are a little hard to handle when reattaching, but it only took a minute or so.

There are a couple of different styles to choose from. One has a beveled edge, and another is described as "diamond cut" which, best I've been able to discern from the pictures, means the edge is metal-finished like the back, whereas the style I chose has a black edge, so if you look at the phone from the side, it looks just like the edge of the glass back. They're also available in some different colors, if that's your thing.

I thought swapping the back would make the phone lighter, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I have not noticed any difference in phone reception or data speed.