It’s almost Mother’s Day! This means it’s that time of year to thank mom for her hard work in managing the everyday life of a family with a bigger and clearer connection to everything important to her. See where we are going here? If she had a phone like the LG Optimus G Pro with its 5.5″ 1080p display, quad-core processor, multi-tasking capabilities, and brilliant 13MP camera, she could maintain her amazing motherly self in a much more efficient manner. Or she could simply rock out with a sweet new smartphone that’s probably better than yours. 

Google I/O is approaching swiftly, so that means it’s time to fill up our calendars with evening activities, one of which seems to be Lookout Mobile Security’s party. Last year, they asked us to invite a big group of readers from Droid Life to join in on the fun (“fun” meaning free booze and prizes), and have once again asked that we do the same for another 10 members of the DL community. 

Who is ready for a contest? Thanks to our friends at Cruzerlite, we have 10 of their Bugdroid Circuit TPU cases to hand out to 10 lucky DL readers. They supplied us with a handful for the Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2 (cult!), and even the Nexus 4, so this contest should cover the majority of you.

For those not familiar with Cruzerlite cases, they tend to be made of TPU (a pliable plastic), are easy to get on or off of your device (still offer a snug fit), provide ample protection from drops, and contain all of the cutouts needed for your phone to continue to function.

Cruzerlite has pumped out some of the more Android-friendly cases over the last couple of years, with this design being the perfect example. Be sure to check out the rest of their lineup in case the Circuit isn’t meeting your needs. They also offer up Android accessories, like plushies, beanies, and more – a one-stop shop for enthusiasts.

Fanboys, let’s do this!

Google launched a new contest this morning called “Favorite Things” to celebrate the new look of Google Play (download here), and it could land you a Nexus 10, Nexus 7, Nexus 4 or a Google Play gift card. It’s the easiest of contests and only asks that you Tweet to @GooglePlay, mention one of your favorite things available for sale on Google Play, provide a link, and use the hashtag #favoritethings. It can be a movie, music, book, app, game, magazine or TV show.

You also need to complete the entry form at the info link below. The contest runs until 11:59PM PT on April 24. Appears to be U.S. only.

From the contest page, they list out the prizes as being ten Nexus 10s, seven Nexus 7s, four Nexus 4s, and 100 gift cards. Get to it!

Contest Info [Rules]

Oh yes, my favorite time of the year has finally arrived. The brackets are out and the NCAA basketball tournament for 2013 is officially 1 day away from starting. For those not fully familiar, at this time every year, businesses see productivity decrease drastically, as office pools and bracket filling commences for the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament. It’s a time for non-sports fans to all of a sudden become sports fans, or to at least decide which mascots are more awesome. It’s a time where anything can happen – shockers, buzzers beaters, and mega-upsets fill our days. We complain about our picks, yell at experts, compare brackets to our friends and colleagues, and completely lose ourselves for a solid month in the madness. In my opinion, there is nothing this good in sports at any other time throughout the year.

To celebrate, we always put together a special Droid Life group, ask you to join in for some good ol’ fashion competition, pick winners in a bracket, and hopefully walk away with some great prizes. 

Our friends over at kovdev recently launched their newest work, Versicolor to Google Play. Kovdev is responsible for great work like Lustre and Tersus, that we have featured countless times in our screenshots here on the site.

Versicolor brings that same clean, minimal-feel, but with a touch of color surrounding the borders of each icon. There are different color packs to choose from and some are even free (like DL Pink), so finding one that fits your tastes is easier than ever. As a bonus, each different color pack comes with matching wallpapers.

They have offered up 20 of their new icon packs for our readers, so let’s skip the nonsense and get right to it. 

Last week, I had a chance to take a look at some of the Nexus 7 case offerings from DODOcase, a San Francisco bookcase style electronics accessory designer. The cases, as I pointed out in my quick reviews, are nothing short of the highest quality. They are hand-made with eco-friendly materials in the U.S., offer all sorts of protection thanks to solid outer designs, and might be some of the prettiest cases we have seen to date. With textures like Moroccan cloth and colored canvases wrapping the outside, they feel great in hand while holding the potential to look better with age.

So as we typically do when accessories show up for our review, we’d like to give them all away to you, the fabulous Droid Life reader. We have two HardCover cases along with two of the Solid and Classic cases. The HardCover is the thinner profile case without the wood tray, so that it ends up being much slimmer while using an industrial grade adhesive to secure your tablet. The Classic and Solid both have the tray, but one uses the soft black Moroccan cloth while the other uses a slightly rougher and likely more durable, canvas. The cases range in price from $35 to $70.

Who wants one? 

The final day is here! Our week long series of Nexus giveaways known as the 5 Days of Nexus finishes today, with a reader approved Nexus 10 16GB. We asked via poll which Nexus you would be most interested in winning, and 58% said that the Samsung-made Nexus 10 would be it. So here we are, giving away a tablet with an insane resolution to one of the amazing readers here at Droid Life.

This contest will run a bit longer, with a winner being chosen on Monday morning. The Nexus 10 is a solid prize, plus today is Friday, so we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to enter.

Good luck!