The Ögon Design Carbon Fiber Card and Passport Clips looks at the basics of how you carry cards, cash and passports as a wallet. Made in France, it’s RFID protected with Card Holder being made in either Carbon Fiber or Polycarbonate Fiber (faux carbon fiber look). So with it being so simple, is a rubber band just as good?
(if you want to see all the features and how many cards and cash it can hold, please watch the video)
I have received several comments making remarks that you might as well just use a rubber band as a wallet rather than use some of the offerings that are out there. In this review, I will present you with three clip wallets from Ögon that bring wallet simplicity to a new level, even when compared to a rubber band.
We have got the carbon fiber, the polycarbonate carbon effect wallet, and the passport one. The carbon fiber is a big clip and has got some retail packaging, which is fine. The polycarbonate version has the same kind of packaging. It exhibits a little bit of a texture, not carbon fiber, but a polycarbonate carbon effect. So, basically, it gives off the same effect and look of carbon fiber, but it is not.
The Passport, the big clipy, is kind of a bigger version of the smaller one, but this one is for passports, as its name indicates. I have got the same kind of model, the carbon fiber which can be clearly seen in the texture. These clips are all very nice. But are they better than a rubber band?
If we take a first look at the carbon fiber and the polycarbonate carbon effect, both are roughly the same. Well, they should be exactly the same, but they are slightly different by a way of the opening. Although it is very meager and almost exactly what it should be, a slight difference is still there. Both of these have a clip, and both serve the same purpose which is a capacity of one to seven cards. Both are a single piece, a single piece of carbon fiber and a single piece of polycarbonate. They have a monobloc gripping system and both are equipped with RFID.
The passport clip has the capacity of one passport. It is also a single piece of carbon fiber that has been formed flat on one side, the same as the card clips, and it also provides RFID protection. The passport measures 5 x 3.5 x 0.4 and weighs 30 grams or one ounce. The other two measure 3.4 x 2.2 x 0.4 and weigh 15 grams or half an ounce.
With these card clips, I got five cards and two slips of cash in each. I also put in the carbon fiber the Lever Gear EDC, a multi-tool, which is a good add there. And of course, with the passport holder, I put a passport. The company recommends up to seven cards plus cash. I want to point out that it begins to point up a bit as the molding is not going to mold back down, and as you start to increase the capacity, it begins to point up, and it gets a little more obvious on the polycarbonate.
All three of these are made in France. The interior lining is microfiber, which, as we know, is very durable. It provides a lot of good wear and tear, and it is glued to the back of the wallet and also the passport holder, which has a lot more microfiber in there.
From a material perspective, you have the polycarbonate carbon effect, which you should be able to distinguish between the carbon fiber and the polycarbonate, or basically the faux carbon fiber. Please watch the video to see how they both look.
If you are asking, why do we have two different versions of these? Well, if we compare the prices, the passport is priced at $110, the carbon fiber clip version at $60, but the polycarbonate carbon effect, the faux carbon fiber costs only $15, a very cost-conscious item if you like this design.
When we use any clip or stack card wallet, the cards sit on top of each other no different from any sandwich wallet that we see out there. Eventually, that will cause some scratching between cards on each other, but not against the wall of the wallet because of that microfiber. Yet, if you have this wallet in the same pocket as keys or sharp objects, it will scratch the carbon fiber. It is not impervious, and that will happen with any wallet if you put it in a pocket along with sharp bits.
I did take the carbon fiber passport version with me on a couple of international trips that I did for several weeks, and I did enjoy it. But the microfiber begins to pull back a little in the corner, and I can imagine over time, despite it being glued, that we will begin to see the microfiber peeling a bit, especially with constant extraction. I also found that the passport would have a tendency to migrate out the side. Still, it does have a very good grip on it. And from a usability perspective, you have a quick push that is a nice way of getting the passport out. You also have the same mechanism with the cash clip and the card clip. It is very easy to get cards out, and the insertion is either on the side, or you just have to lift it a bit to push it back in. Besides, because it is a stack wallet, you have got to thumb through your cards to get what you want.
Overall, these clips involve some nice design thinking, quality materials, final form, and simplicity of function. I am good with the polycarbonate at 15 bucks. But for the others, I am thinking that a rubber band might just be fine.
The final score for the polycarbonate carbon effect card clip, is four for quality, four for the price because it is very well priced compared to its higher quality carbon fiber brother, feature scores a three, usability a four. It is fairly easy to use and pretty simple, and with three for perception, this clip gets a final score of 38 out of 50.
