Nomad Leather Mag Wallet Review: Quality Meets Apple Find My

Yahoo

6 hours ago

Even when Apple made a leather MagSafe wallet, I wasn't a fan. Thankfully, Nomad has a new minimalist wallet with an Apple Find My Bluetooth tracker built in. After a week with the Nomad Leather Mag Wallet, I can tell you it's not leaving my iPhone anytime soon.
The Nomad Leather Mag Wallet is available for $80 in Rustic Brown and Black. While it can be used with any Android phone with a Qi2 or MagSafe case, the built-in Bluetooth tracker only supports Apple's Find My. For that reason, the wallet is primarily marketed to iPhone owners.
Before this review, my go-to MagSafe wallet was the Peak Design Mobile Wallet. I kept the Nomad Tracking Card inside to ensure AirTag-like tracking of my ID and credit cards. Unfortunately, keeping the tracker in my wallet limited the number of cards I could carry.
The Nomad Leather Mag Wallet fixes this by incorporating the Bluetooth tracker into the device.
Looking around the Horween leather-wrapped accessory, I was immediately reminded of Apple's Wallet with MagSafe. It's slim, securely connects to the back of my iPhone using MagSafe, and looks premium overall. But there are a good number of differences between the first-party and third-party wallets.
The Nomad Leather Mag Wallet can hold four standard credit cards compared to Apple's three. In my experience, if you have any metal cards, those take up extra space and make sliding cards in and out more difficult. Ultimately, I only carried around my ID, one plastic credit card, and one metal credit card to ensure everything slid in and out smoothly.
Additionally, there are cutouts that make it easy to get your cards in and out. At the bottom, a slot allows you to slide the entire stack out of the wallet. I found this to be the best way to access the credit card at the back of the pile. You'll also need to push everything up to dig out any cards in the middle.
A divot around front is the perfect shape to use your thumb and slide the first card out of the wallet. I kept my most-used credit card here as it was super easy to access.
But most importantly, Nomad's Leather Mag Wallet works as a Bluetooth tracker even when disconnected from your iPhone. Apple's wallet only shared the location where the accessory was removed from your phone. With a built-in battery, the Nomad Leather Mag Wallet continues to share its location whenever it comes within range of compatible devices, like iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
Unfortunately, the Nomad wallet doesn't have a UWB radio like an AirTag, so you won't be able to precisely locate it. Instead, in the Find My app, you can get directions to its last detected address, and if the wallet is nearby, you can play a high-pitch alarm. While I would love for Apple's UWB tech to make it to third-party accessories, the options available make the wallet easy to find.
The biggest annoyance with Apple's AirTags is that the coin batteries only last about a year. After that, you'll have to run to the store and pick up replacements. Thankfully, you won't have to worry about swapping batteries into your wallet.
When fully charged, the Nomad Leather Mag Wallet has an advertised five months of battery life. When it's low, all you have to do is stick the wallet on a Qi wireless charger—it also magnetically attaches to MagSafe and Qi2 chargers. Once aligned correctly, the wallet emits a short beep.
Something to note is that there is no LED light to indicate the wallet's remaining battery life. Instead, you'll have to rely on the Find My app to notify you when the battery is due to be charged.
I've really enjoyed my time with the Nomad Leather Mag Wallet, and knowing the leather will patina over time to match the wear of my Traditional Leather Case makes it even better.
The biggest downside is that Nomad isn't selling a wallet with support for Android's Find Hub. However, with most companies refusing to add proper Qi2 to their flagship smartphones, this isn't all that surprising. Once Team Green no longer requires the purchase of Qi2-ready cases for magnetic accessories, maybe we'll see Nomad release another wallet.
I don't see the $80 cost as being too much given that the wallet is made of premium leather, but it is more expensive than Apple's and other third-party alternatives on Amazon. If you choose to invest in the accessory, I believe it should hold up for years.