Let’s get in the Ekster Parliament wallet. It comes in a nice package, a great presentation here. This is an interesting, clever card slider system within the wallet. It has a mechanism in the box area that flares the cards up for easy access. This capability is something you don’t typically see in wallets but you’ll begin seeing lot in the future. As a bifold, it has an interior compartment for a few cards and this color is Roman Cognac.
Inside we have two slots. Each of these are capable of handling a couple cards. And only these two slots are RFID capable because they have the protective lining. Within the box is where the actual slider mechanism is located, and that’s where the cards are stored and we’ll show you how that works in a minute. There is a cash strap on the front of the card box on the interior, where you can put cash, folded over. If we close the wallet and flip it over, we do have one external card slot, which is a relatively quick access slot. Now let’s get in to see what we can do by way of card capacity.
(if you want to see all the features and how many cards and cash it can hold, please watch the video)
The company indicates it can handle 10+ cards. We were able to get 11 in the wallet, but it gets pretty tight. You will notice as we try and close it, it bulges and won’t close flat. And I’ve only got two pieces of cash in there. That aside, what really makes this an interesting wallet is the clever card slider mechanism. And if we look at this closer, it provides quick access even when the wallet is closed. This makes it even more fun when you need immediate access. It’s also very flexible, let’s say you want to have something in the middle, you can pull that one out and you can put it into any slot, put it in the front, the back, the middle, it doesn’t matter, push it all back in and you’re ready to go again.
Accessibility to cards is really easy with this slider system, and it actually holds them in. You can try and make these come out by shaking it and it doesn’t happen. And the reason why is that on the sides of the box there are rubber grips, and these rubber grips actually hold the cards unless they’re pushed up by the mechanism. And it flares them for easy access, such a clever little system. Now of course, anything mechanical can go wrong. It can fail, it can suffer from cards getting stuck, the push mechanism can fail, regular cards that you try and put in here may not work, may not flare properly, so why would you want maintenance on a wallet? The Ekster Senate is another option without the flip cover and if you’d like to see a comparison between the two, that’s also available.
The reason is that it’s cool to be able to pull out your wallet and then, all of a sudden you say, let me get the card out, press the button and whip out the card you want and you’re ready.
Let’s get into the ratings of this particular wallet. For quality, they do provide a 30 day money back guarantee with a 12 month warranty. It’s made from top grain leather, but very thin leather. It has painted edges and it could possibly suffer from a technology failure. So, we’re going to give it a rating of 3. The pricing is a 2. And with that being the case, I’m thinking it’s more a $50-60 wallet, the card slider mechanism is not that unique. I’ve seen them in other mass production wallets from the Middle Eastern area, but it is kind of cool.
For features we’ll give it a 4 because this unique card slider system does have RFID in those two inner pockets with the cash wrap and the pull tab card strap. The usability is good as you can very easily eject all the cards from inside of the wallet and it’s easy to put them back. There’s the cash strap which can’t really hold a tremendous number of bills without it starting to become too thick.
For perception we’re giving it a 4, because this slider system is clever and it is built on a very good brand. They have a trackable version of their wallet where it actually has a tracking tile in it along with other options you can find on their website. With that, the final score of 3.1 out of 5.
A premium leather smart wallet, perfect for slim storage and quick card access. The built-in aluminum cardholder fans out your cards at the click of a button and protects them against skimming. Holds 1-12 cards and bills.
