In this review, we will go through all the features, upsides and downsides, and the value of one of the rare premium minimalist wallets with a wide flat cash pocket – Bellroy The Low.
Bellroy The Low Review
Bellroy The Low is a slim, bifold, minimalist wallet made out of high-grade vegetable-tanned leather. It has a capacity for 12 cards and 15 cash bills and is featured in 4 different stylish colors. The wallet has many useful features such as its wide cash pocket, three quick-access card slots, one larger card slot, and a hidden pocket for your most valuable contents. Bellroy The Low is one of the best value wallets in its price range, offering elegance, durability, and functionality in a way not a lot of other wallets do.
Should you buy Bellroy The Low wallet?
Bellroy The Low is one of those wallets you might buy and end up using for ages. With its high-quality leather, you can probably even use this wallet for your whole life, and even pass it down to your children.
It’s hard to grow tired of such an eye-pleasing item that provides so many useful features. Bellroy The Low is my recommended go-to option for anyone looking for a new, slim, bifold wallet that will be as useful as any old wallet, except that it will provide a much more sophisticated look.
Buying
The Low wallet from Bellroy’s collection can be bought from many places, including Bellroy’s official website and Amazon, which will usually be the best places to buy the wallet from.
In general, I recommend buying this wallet from Bellroy’s official web store. You can always find the best purchasing options over there, discounts, as well as choose from more color options for The Low wallet.
Price and value for money
Bellroy The Low will usually cost you around $75, although you can always find it discounted for up to 30% or 40% whenever it’s put on a sale.
The mentioned price puts this wallet in the premium, high-end wallets, right next to some of the biggest names in the minimalist wallets market. For such a price, The Low wallet has quite a lot to offer, both in terms of style and versatility.
Shipping details
While ordering from the Bellroy web store, you will be offered two shipping options for the product: regular and express shipping.
The regular option costs no additional fees and is usually dispatched in around 2 days. The item will then be delivered to your doorstep in up to a month, typically in a week or two.
The express shipping on the other hand costs from $6 to up to $18, depending on how fast you want the item delivered. Shipping to the US, UK, and Australia will take up to 3 days, while shipping to other countries usually takes up to a week
You can find all the details about the shipping fees and delivery times on Bellroy’s Shipping and Delivery page.
Customer support
Bellroy has an outstanding service team, always ready to help their customers with whatever they might need their help with. You can contact their support team by sending an e-mail at [email protected].
Additionally, you can follow one of Bellroy’s social media accounts to stay up to date with the latest news about the brand. They are present on:
Warranty and returns policy
The quality and durability of Bellroy’s wallets are guaranteed with their 3-year warranty which covers any factory defects, or other damages that weren’t at the user’s fault. This warranty applies only to products purchased from the official Bellroy store or through one of their authorized affiliates.
On the other hand, if the wallet isn’t performing to your expectations you can always send it back in the first 30 days after the purchase and get a full refund for it. In order to start the return process, you can simply send an e-mail at the [email protected] address and you’ll get further details on how to proceed.
Basics
Bellroy The Low is a bifold wallet equipped with tons of pockets intended to hold both cash and cards. Its design largely resembles a classical wallet, with one flat wide pocket where you store unfolded bills, and multiple smaller card slots on both sides.
How to use Bellroy The Low wallet?
Using this wallet is a lot like using any other wallet you might have had in the past.
You can place all your cards in the designated card slots, with your most frequently used ones going in the quick-access slots in the front, while the others are placed in the remaining slot behind them.
The large flat pocket is designated for cash bills only, where you can store any banknotes smaller than 2.75 in / 7 cm in height without folding them. This is one of the main characteristics of this wallet. It’s specifically designed for bills with low height, hence its name – The Low.
Aesthetics
Bellroy The Low features an immaculate design with elegant, modern aesthetics.
The wallet has a smooth surface, clean of any rugged parts except for the subtle and elegant Bellroy logo that’s engraved at the bottom right corner. Its edges are neatly stitched with a white thread that provides a stylish complementary look to the wallet’s design.
Design and colors
The overall design of the wallet is fairly simple, as it features a minimalist look without any unnecessary stripes or shapes on its outer walls.
Its surface is dyed in a single color, leaving you to choose one of the following four options:
- black
- charcoal
- ranger green
- caramel
Materials
Bellroy The Low is made solely out of environmentally certified, vegetable-tanned leather further glanced with a smooth finish that provides both an extravagant look and a premium feel in your hands.
Clothing style fit
With a good variety of colors you can choose from, this wallet will fit most types of outfits you plan to wear in the future. Whether you often pull out formal outlooks or like to dress more casually, The Low has a wallet design suitable for every closet.
Features
Although a fairly slim and simple-looking wallet, Bellroy The Low is stacked with many useful features for all types of content you might plan to carry in your wallet.
Flat bills pocket
The main feature that defines this wallet is its flat bills pocket, a feature you don’t often see in modern minimalist trends when it comes to these everyday carry items.
The pocket is designed to hold lots of cash bills inside, each unfolded and with easy access to them. Pockets like this were a regular occurrence on traditional wallets but were slowly sidelined by all the modern models that took the minimalistic approach.
Fortunately for those of you who couldn’t quite let go of these types of compartments, they are not completely gone. The Low is one of the rare Bellroy wallets that still has one, while still maintaining a slim minimalist profile.
Quick-access card slots
Besides the flat cash pocket, the wallet is equipped with 3 more card slots placed right inside the wallet. The slots will pop up right in front of you once you open the wallet, providing quick and easy access to the cards stored inside of them.
These slots have a height just slightly lower than the one of a typical credit card, meaning you can grab the one you need with ease in a second.
Note that these slots can store up to one card each, while all the other cards will go in the larger pocket placed on the left side. This will further help you organize each piece of content you put in your wallet, making it a great option for those who like to keep everything stored separately.
One of the coolest features found on Bellroy The Low wallet is definitely the hidden card slot placed right inside the widest pocket.
This slot is perfect when you want something to have an extra layer of protection from the outer world, or when you simply carry a receipt or a piece of paper you must not lose. It has a depth of around two credit cards, making it a perfect place to keep a few business cards in order not to clutter the main slots.
How many cards can Bellroy The Low wallet hold?
Taking into account all of the card slots and the hidden pocket, Bellroy The Low wallet can easily hold up to 12 cards inside it.
3 cards will go into the quick access slots, 2 in the hidden pocket, and up to 7 can be fitted into the larger pocket behind one of the slots and flat wide cash pocket.
How much cash can Bellroy The Low wallet hold?
The Low is one of the best Bellroy wallets for cash, being able to hold about 10-15 cash bills inside its pocket.
However, it’s important to remember that this wallet is designed specifically for short-sized banknotes, with a height lower than 2.75 in / 7 cm. The most notable currencies that fall in this category are the US and Australian Dollar, or the Russian Rubles.
Banknotes like the Yen or the Euro (denominations of €20 upwards) would unfortunately not fit in this wallet without folding them length-wise first.
Dimensions
Bellroy The Low has roughly similar dimensions to any traditional bifold wallet. You can comfortably keep it in your back or coat pocket, but it wouldn’t really fit in most front pockets.
Its precise dimensions are:
- width: 4.5 in / 11.5 cm
- height: 3 in / 7.7 cm
- depth: expandable, depending on the contents you put inside the wallet
Customer satisfaction
The wallet has fairly nice feedback from its users, amounting to around a 4.4/5 stars rating on Amazon, with overwhelmingly positive reviews. All of the buyers agree that this is one of the freshest takes on the classic bifold leather wallets, efficiently providing lots of storage in its stylish minimalist design.
Known issues and problems
The most convenient part about this wallet is definitely its functionality regarding different types of cash bills. With the purposefully low height, Bellroy The Low is only capable of holding cash bills no bigger than 2.75 in / 7 cm. This renders the wallet completely unusable in Europe, where you’ll have to pay with the Euro bills, or in Japan, where you’ll have to use the Yen.
Build quality-wise, the wallet has one small yet notable issue with its pockets. Namely, its left-sided card slots are not stitched to the rest of the wallet but are rather glued onto it. This makes these slots much more susceptible to tearing, which is not something you want to hear for a wallet in this price range.
And on a final note, I would warn any potential buyers that the 12 cards mark advertised on the website is actually hardly reachable with Bellroy The Low wallet. In reality, the wallet becomes much more cluttered and harder to use after you’ve stuffed just 7 cards in.
How does Bellroy The Low wallet compare to other minimalist wallets?
While some of the aforementioned issues are something found in almost every wallet, it’s always good to have a backup option for anything. Here is a quick rundown of two of the most popular alternatives to Bellroy The Low wallet.
Bellroy The Low vs Bellroy Hide and Seek
Coming from the same brand, the Hide and Seek is one of the best-selling Bellroy wallets. It’s slightly more expensive than The Low, priced at around $89, but has a couple of more useful features that might be worth paying extra.
The two wallets have a very similar design, are made from the same material, and have the same card and bills capacity when it comes to their pockets.
However, the Bellroy Hide and Seek wallet features RFID protection for all its inner pockets, as well as a coin pouch found beneath the card slots.
If these features are something you believe you need, then go and check out my full review of the Bellroy Hide and Seek wallet, and see for yourself whether this wallet is worth the greater price.
Bellroy The Low vs Stealth Mode
If you are on a tight budget and aren’t ready to pay the premium price for a deluxe wallet yet, the market is full of more affordable options, some of which are not that terrible really.
The Stealth Mode wallet is practically the budget-priced alternative to Bellroy The Low wallet. It’s twice cheaper, priced at around $35, yet offers the same storage space, design, and functionality as its more expensive counterpart.
However, in order to fit these features into your tight budget, you’ll have to make some notable quality sacrifices. The Stealth Mode wallet is made from lesser quality leather that can be easily worn off and damaged after just a few months of usage. It’s also designed with less pleasing aesthetics and an overall cheaper feel to it.
You can read my Stealth Mode Leather Bifold wallet review where I give my fair share about the true value of this wallet.
Who should not buy Bellroy The Low wallet?
When it comes to the perfect owners of this wallet, people who use currencies such as the Euro, or any other denomination with notably big bills are definitely not among them. This wallet was designed for currencies with low dimensions only, so you should carefully watch out for this detail before buying Bellroy The Low.
Another type that won’t appreciate this wallet is adventurists, and similarly active people who are more likely to damage their wallets during the day. Whether it’s because you are less careful with this item, or you plan on taking your wallet on long mountain hikes, the stylish gentle leather of The Low won’t do you any good. See my guides on the best outdoors wallets and the best tactical wallets for some more durable options for a more dynamic lifestyle.
If you’ve stopped using cash bills recently, and only shop with your credit card, then you should also probably consider some other option. Bellroy The Low’s main feature is its wide cash pocket, which is pretty much useless if you don’t plan on carrying any cash at all.
The wallet may be on the expensive side for some, and if you’d like to save some money, check out some cheaper options in my guides on the best wallets under $50 and the best wallets under $30.
And finally, I wouldn’t recommend Bellroy The Low to someone who wants to go full minimal and buy a wallet that can fit anywhere and in any pocket. While pretty slim and restrictive, this wallet is still somewhat wide in size and may not satisfy all the minimalist lovers out there who want to go for something much smaller.
Who should buy Bellroy The Low wallet?
Bellroy The Low will astonish any leather lovers out there, shopping for their next stylish wallet. The premium leather used in this wallet, like in any other Bellroy wallet, is of the utmost quality and has times and times again proven to be one of the most eye and touch-pleasing materials used in the wallet industry.
I would also recommend this wallet to anyone who likes to keep things organized and put their cards in separate pockets. Bellroy The Low has up to 5 pockets at its disposal, and will surely grant you a lot of space to better organize its contents.
Probably the best reason to consider this wallet is its cash pocket. If you are the type of person who still uses cash bills almost every day, you will appreciate the addition of a flat-wide cash pocket on this wallet, which is something you can very rarely find in minimalist wallets today.
Overall, I believe this is one of the best wallets for those that are looking for something more classical, with an elegant modern twist. Bellroy The Low offers both a large capacity, for those who want better utility, as well as highly fashionable aesthetics, for those who put a higher emphasis on their looks.
Where to buy the Bellroy The Low from?
Bellroy The Low Specifications
| Type | minimalist |
| Max n. of cards | 12 |
| RFID blocking? | no |
| TSA compliant? | yes |
| Materials used | vegetable-tanned leather |
| Height | 3 in / 7.7 cm |
| Width | 4.5 in / 11.5 cm |
| Depth | expandable |
| Features | wide flat cash pocket, quick-access card slots, hidden pocket |
| Water resistance | none |
| Warranty | 3-years warranty |
| Return period | 30 days |
