Nomad Leather Wallet Charges Your IPhone, Looks Great
I don’t like combo gadgets and prefer tools that do one thing well over a dozen things bad. But the Nomad Leather Wallet for iPhone does two things perfectly: It’s as beautiful as it is useful. If you’re looking for a convenient way to carry your cards and cash with you, and charge your phone on the go, this wallet is the perfect balance of quality, style and utility.
Nomad , the creators of the previously mentioned ChargeCard , and in Roadtrip , returned with a more powerful, fully integrated way to charge your phone on the course. They sent us one of their wallets to try it out for a bit, and I can honestly say I found a combo gadget that I really like. The wallet comes in two styles (slim and foldable ) and is made from Horween leather that will stand up to the tough tests of long-term use. The stitching used to create the wallet is a pre-stretched linen thread soaked in beeswax from Fil Au Chinois in France and is used for everything from horse saddles to fashion brands like Hermés. Basically, this wallet won’t fall apart anytime soon, and when it breaks, you get a great, durable look.
The battery inside is a thin Panasonic 2400mAh Li-ion. It uses a built-in Apple MFi- certified Lightning cable to charge your phone (approximately 2 inches long), and the built-in battery is charged using the supplied standard Micro USB cable. The battery makes the wallet seem thick at first, but once you fill it with all your cards and cash, you will see that it is about as thick as a regular wallet. The picture above shows a comparison of the Nomad Wallets (below), a typical leather wallet, and a leather wallet / iPhone combo.
Nomad offers to fully charge the iPhone 6s from the battery, and my own experience certainly confirms this claim. I let my iPhone charge to 50% and then decided to use the wallet’s battery for charging only to see how long I could keep my phone running. I was able to keep my phone above 20% and around 50% for four full days with regular use (checking email, using social media, reading the news, listening to Spotify, and watching episodic YouTube videos) before I emptied my Nomad wallet. battery – and I’m using an iPhone 6s +, not a regular 6s. But to be honest, I keep my iPhone screen low and not stare at it all day. Plus, my iPhone and Nomad wallet are new so their batteries are fresh and full of life. My guess is that the charging capacity of the battery will decrease over time, but this is definitely not a portable charger intended only for emergencies. This rechargeable battery has enough charge to separate from other similar card batteries.
Nomad wallets are also equipped with an RFID blocking layer to keep your RFID-enabled credit cards and key cards safe. The question of whether or not RFID blocking is really necessary has yet to be resolved, but it’s still nice to have. The blocking mesh is hidden under the skin so it is not visible and adds very little bulk to the wallet.
Best of all, the Nomad Wallet doesn’t look unprofessional or anything I wouldn’t want to pull out of a pretty suit. It’s not bulky, light-colored, or fancy – just thin, stylish leather. You wouldn’t even know that it is actually a battery if you didn’t see me charging my phone with it. I wore it with friends and family for several days, placing it prominently in front of me on the table wherever we were, and no one noticed the battery or charging cable. It wasn’t until I hooked up my iPhone 6s + in a busy sports bar that all my friends, in disbelief, put on a beer and asked if my wallet was charging my phone.
I am by no means a fashion guru, but I love things that look good and I am an advocate of paying a little more for materials that will last. So the Nomad Wallet – $ 120 for the slim model and $ 150 for the double-fold model – might seem overpriced, but you definitely get what you pay for. Plus, a beautiful handmade leather wallet will set you back about $ 100 anyway, and that’s without the ability to charge your phone. It’s nice to have both options in one package.