Bellroy Mag Wallet Review

Wallets that stick to the back of your phone are a minimalist traveler’s dream. Depending on what you need that day, you can get away with carrying your phone, and that’s it. You can still pay for a meal or new gear, stay in touch, and order a drink, all without bringing along a bag (as long as your phone fits in your pocket!). While, as you know, we do love bags, sometimes we want the freedom to leave extra gear behind, if only a bulky wallet. So, having a MagSafe wallet on the back of a phone is like having it all.

There are plenty of options out there, and now Bellroy is getting into the game with its own Mag Wallet. How does it work, and does it stand up to the competition? Read on to find out.

The Rundown

You have your choice of materials with the Bellroy Mag Wallet. You can get it in leather, in either Black or Nightsky, a navy that’s so dark as to look almost black—until you put it next to the Black. You can also get it in INNOVERA™ leather alternative, which is the option we’re testing. It is a combination of a bio-based polymer, plant protein, and post-consumer recycled nylon. While it certainly doesn’t feel exactly like leather, it does feel premium and comes in several other colors.

It has a slight texture and a matte finish, so the slightly shiny Bellroy brand name at the bottom stands out a bit, especially when it catches the light. On the back, the MagSafe logo of a circle atop a vertical line is the same shiny finish, and, overall, it creates a pleasant, professional look. What’s more important is that the actual magnet on the back of the wallet connects securely to the back of your phone. We haven’t had any issues with it sliding around or accidentally falling off, even though we’re testing it with an iPhone Mini and the wallet is longer than the phone’s bottom edge.

The only other exterior design feature to mention is a crease cutting off the right-hand corner of the wallet. Pulling the corner back allows access to your cards, but it’s also supposed to function as a phone stand. Alas, it took weeks to make it stay, but it still doesn’t work consistently. Perhaps you need to pull it back and try to crease it for more than two weeks, but that’s how long we’ve been trying, and it’s just starting to improve. Hopefully, it’s just our brand sample that’s not functioning well, but we wouldn’t count on that feature. If a phone stand is important to you, there are plenty more MagSafe wallets with stands to choose from—go with them.

When you pull it open, you’ll see that the interior has a soft microfiber liner. Presumably, it’s there to help your cards slide out easily. Bellroy says you can fit three inside, and that’s what we’ve been using with no issue. That’s really all you need: an ID and two other credit cards are usually enough to get you through the day.

You can’t push the cards up from the bottom for better access, so you must just pull up the card you want. We find it easier to grab at least two, if not all three, and then push down what we don’t need, but we have been able to pull up just one on occasion.

Packability

The Bellroy Mag Wallet is extremely packable because it doesn’t add much extra depth to your phone. So while it will take up more space in your pants pocket, it’s still easy to slide in, unlike some of the bulkier options out there that hold more cards (there’s always a tradeoff, isn’t there?). And if you want to take it off your phone and tuck it into your daypack or sling for some reason, it takes up the same amount of space as another minimalist wallet would, so there’s no issue sliding it into pockets there.

We’ve been using it exclusively for a few weeks now and haven’t had any trouble sticking it anywhere we would otherwise stash our phone, making it a great option for minimalist travel, as far as we’re concerned.

Quick Comparison

We feel this wallet is perhaps best compared to the MagSafe wallet our tester has been using for years, the Nomad Goods Leather Mag Wallet. Both are MagSafe ways of keeping your cards on the back of your phone, and both are leather (or it’s at least an option). That’s the first difference with the Bellroy: you’ll be happy that you can get a leather-free wallet if you are vegan or just prefer materials other than leather. Not everyone is keen on it, so the choice is nice. The Nomad Goods wallet only comes in Horween leather, which definitely develops a patina and (in our tester’s case) a few battle scars from the detritus of being carried in slings and pockets along with things like keys.

The Nomad Goods wallet doesn’t include a stand, but as far as we’re concerned, the Bellroy feature doesn’t work well, so that’s kind of a wash. However, the Nomad Goods wallet is trackable with Apple Find My if you lose it along the way or can’t remember where you tucked it, while the Bellroy is not.

Card capacity is similar—four for Nomad Goods and three for Bellroy—but the Nomad Goods wallet has a notch at the bottom so you can push the cards up for easier access. We still usually end up pushing up more than the card we need, but that makes it easier. It also has a built-in tab at the bottom that holds one card just as securely as four, so you can leave extra behind when you’re doing something like taking a cruise and only need to carry your cabin card, not everything else.

The Bellroy wallet is the same thickness; it’s just ever-so-slightly longer to lock your cards down behind the magnetic flap, while the Nomad Goods one shows your cards out the top.

Which is better comes down to personal preference. If you don’t want leather and don’t need tracking, the Bellroy Mag Wallet is a good option—just don’t count on that phone stand.