The Nano Boy Slim Wallet Review

The Nano Boy by Jamie Jacobs is a slim elasticated wallet whose primary purpose is to slim down and streamline your daily carry. I was skeptical of just the images when I first came to purchasing this wallet. The wallet doesn’t scream quality and on my first unboxing, this revelation came clear as the wallet didn’t blow me away with the materials used or the way it was put together. Never the less I went in with an open mind. Let’s take a further look and see what this wallet has to offer.

‘The Nano Boy – minimum size, maximum convenience! Jaimie Jacobs is an innovative fashion label for handmade leather goods. Our Nano Boy is a small but practical wallet for minimalists. The Nano Boy is extremely small and flat but still accommodates up to 13 cards and plenty of banknotes, and even coins’.

Look & Design

As I’ve mentioned I’m not particularly a fan of the design of the wallet. It looks quite cluttered and the materials don’t hold up to the high standard stated in the product description. The wallet I bought suffered from some frayed edges to its stitching and the leather looks kind of creased and bumpy in texture like it wasn’t stretched out correctly.

I can’t say much about the leather used (as it wasn’t mentioned in the product page) but I’d take a guess it’s made from genuine leather. For those who don’t know Genuine leather is one of the worst quality leathers on the market and was given its ‘premium’ sounding name to mislead consumers. 

Nevertheless, I decided to put the wallet through a few durability tests in terms of how well the wallet copes when dirty or under extreme use. I found that being made from leather and elastic the wallet actually cleaned up quite well. I find this the case with many elastic wallets as the elastic is durable and easy to clean and won’t ruin the material when washed in hot water.

Functionality & Utility 

Where the Nano Boy excels is in its functionality. For such a small wallet it does a great job of providing a bunch of features that are usually scrapped by most minimalist wallets to help reduce its size. The wallet is split into 2 distinct areas. The first, and main area, is the card sleeve where you’ll store your credit/debit cards in a vertical orientation. 

Due to the minimal size of the Nano Boy, this is achieved through the method known as ‘card stacking’ where cards are stored on top of one another. This is a common way to store cards in slimmer sized wallets but does inhibit functionality as it becomes a lot more dificult to access cards from your wallet. The wallet does have a pull tab on the front which helps with this issue but it’s not perfect. 

The second area is part is an elasticated sleeve on the back of the wallet. This is where you can store any loose change you may have. This feature works really well as the tightly bound elastic provides a great way to keep coins in place while the elastic expands and contacts to fit the individual size of each coin. 

Price

The best thing about this wallet and perhaps the reason why I’ve given its quality such a harsh review is its price. Coming in at a low $30.00 the wallet is fairly priced for what you get. Too often I find that wallets don’t probably reflect an accurate price tag and often con people into paying more for what you get. I think the Nano Boy is a fair price for what you get but you do pay this price with poorer materials and a wallet which might not last.

Alternative Wallets

TGT Wallet: The TGT Wallet (pronounced tight) was one of the first ultra-minimalist wallets I ever used. I’d say the TGT is even slimmer than the Nano Boy in the fact it’s less functional, more expensive but does come in a range of amazing designs. I also found the quality of the TGT to be much higher than the Nano Boy. For more information on the TGT wallet check out our full review here.

Trove Wallet: I’m in the process of reviewing the Trove wallet at the moment and I must say it’s quite good. Very much like The Nano Boy in terms of features and design, the Trove excels more in its quality and range of designs available. In fact, they have a built-in system on their website where you can fully design your own Trove wallet customizing things like color and additional features. For more information on the Trove Wallet click here.

Consumer Reviews

Below are just a few handpicked consumer reviews I found which gives a range of opinions regarding the Nano Boy and mention some things I may have missed why using the wallet myself. These reviews are from Amazon.

Review 1: ‘Great little purchase and really does get rid of the massive wallet that used to live in my back pocket full of useless receipts. This is quite a lot of money for what it is and glad I purchased mine in the sale’.

Review 2: ‘I was trying really hard to convince myself that this wallet is comfortable for me, but I finally got to admit that it isn’t. I’ll give 3 stars for longevity and size. I’m using it for 12 cards and I really feel that this is too much. It would be perfect with 8, I think. I saw reviews about that this wallet will ruin your cards and its true. It will peel all the protection off’.

Review 3: ‘Not worth the money. A strip of neoprene and a strip of seat belt, albeit in a clever configuration. OK for cards only, but no one wants the piece of origami that you have to fold notes into to get them into the ‘pocket’.

Final Verdict

For a cheaper low-end wallet the Nano Boy holds well and although I’m personally not a fan of its design, nor it’s choice of materials, the wallet does do a good job in terms of its functionality and how it works in daily use. I won’t say I wouldn’t recommend this wallet but the choice of similar wallets like this (check out our reviews of a range of elastic wallets) means perhaps you should look around a bit more before you commit. For more information on the Nano Boy click the link below.