Welcome to my review of the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder, one of the most functional aluminum wallets available today.
Ekster Aluminum Cardholder Review
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder is a slim, modern, minimalist wallet made out of aluminum and plastic. It has two pockets, one enclosed and one open and expandable. It holds up to 15 cards and some cash bills, has strong RFID protection, and a quick access button for one of the pockets. The wallet has one of the most practical designs and is great for people who use lots of cards every day.
Why should you buy the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder wallet?
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder is one of the most spacious, sturdy, yet slimmest wallets ever made.
It has a very practical design, with quick access and an expandable pocket, while looking very slick and modern too.
Simply put, this is one of the best options for people who are looking for a safe aluminum wallet, with storage for more than a dozen cards, shining with quality and elegance.
Buying
You can buy the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder from the official Ekster store or Amazon.
Price and value for money
The Ekster Aluminum wallet is priced at around $79, no matter where you purchase it from.
It’s definitely not a budget-priced wallet, as there are many cheaper ones out there, but it’s not the most expensive one either. However, it is great value for money nonetheless, mainly because of its huge capacity and slim build.
Shipping details
When purchasing from the USA through the Ekster store, you get free standard shipping with delivery in 2 to 5 days. Shipping to Canada is also free, but delivery takes between 8 and 15 days.
International shipping to other countries takes around 15 days as well, but costs $6 extra.
Customer support
If you have any unanswered questions about the product, your order, or any other concern, you can contact the Ekster support team via the chatbox found at the bottom right of their website.
You can also send them an email at [email protected].
Warranty policy
Ekster’s wallets come with a one-year warranty period.
The warranty applies to all defects excluding those done by misuse or neglect by the user. You can see the details of this policy on Ekster’s warranty webpage.
Return and refund
If you aren’t completely satisfied with your wallet, you can simply return it and get a full refund within up to 45 days from the day of receiving your order.
However, this policy only applies to products purchased directly from the Ekster store. Ekster products bought from third parties or other stores may have different return and refund policies.
The Ekster brand
Ekster is an accessories brand founded by a couple of innovative young people who were annoyed by the lack of options on the wallets market. After releasing their first product, they quickly gained a large customer base and grew to be one of the most successful smart wallet brands in the world.
Today, they offer a large assortment of wallets, bags, backpacks, and pocket accessories. Driven by maximizing efficiency, they redesign products that reflect the needs of the modern world in a minimalist fashion.
Ekster Aluminum Cardholder Basics
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder is made from three parts: a main enclosed compartment, a backplate, and an elastic strap to hold the two together.
How to use the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder?
You can put your cards in either the main pocket or beneath the backplate. They will be perfectly safe no matter what you choose, so you can simply use both in order to get more capacity.
At the bottom of the wallet, you’ll find a button that, when pushed, pulls all the cards out and provides you with quick access to them.
If you are the type of person who likes to keep some cash on them as well, then you will probably love this wallet. You can keep some cash bills in either pocket, although I would recommend keeping them beneath the backplate as the other pocket is mainly used for cards.
Aesthetics
The wallet is made in a truly minimalist fashion, with an extremely slim figure and sleek design.
Design and colors
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder has one of the slimmest and simplest designs ever made. It doesn’t have any rugged areas, logos, or any redundant stuff on its surface. The wallet is basically a simple, flat, enclosed shell with an additional plate attached to it.
What’s also great about it is that it comes in tons of color options:
- graphite
- blue
- green
- red
- black
- silver
- rose
- gold green
And if you don’t like any of these, Ekster offers the wallet in three colorful camo designs:
- classic camo
- digital navy
- digital green
Clothing style fit
With such a large color palette, this is easily one of the most universal wallets ever made when it comes to fitting your wardrobe. You can combine it with practically any clothing style you might have. Its slim figure also allows it to seamlessly blend in any type of outfit, whether it’s a casual or a more formal one.
Build quality
Besides the great design, Ekster has delivered a sturdy and durable quality with the Aluminum Cardholder as well.
Materials
The wallet is made from space-grade 6061-T6 aluminum, which is one of the strongest and most used materials in the wallet industry. You’ll find this material in at least one wallet from almost any brand, which only proves how strong and practical it is.
Other than aluminum, the wallet uses an elastic fabric for the strap that holds the backplate attached to it, and plastic for some of the inner parts of the cardholder and the button.
Features
Here is a rundown of all the features the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder has to offer.
RFID Blocking
A great benefit of the strong aluminum is the RFID protection it provides. The wallet keeps your cards safe from any wireless theft, so you don’t have to worry about it if that’s one of your concerns.
Still, I don’t believe this protection applies to both the main and the backplate pocket, at least not at the same level of efficiency. I would recommend keeping your most important cards in the main, enclosed pocket, as that one seems to be much safer.
Expandable aluminum backplate
On the backside of the wallet, you’ll find an aluminum backplate attached to it with an elastic strap.
This backplate creates a secondary, open-end pocket where you can further store some cards, cash bills, and any other contents that can be strapped to the wallet. Thanks to its elastic nature, the pocket is fully expandable, and it can expand as long as the strap allows it.
Additionally, the backplate has a thumb hole at the bottom of it for quick access to the cards placed beneath it. It’s truly a multifunctional feature that makes this wallet much more than a simple cardholder.
This is arguably one of the best features found on minimalist cardholders, and it certainly addresses the most common problem with minimalist wallets, which is quick card access. Yet it’s pretty rare to see this feature in high-quality wallets, especially one as well-made as the one on the Ekster.
The button uses a spring system to pull out all the cards in the main pocket after it’s pushed. The cards come out in a staircase shape, allowing you to pick the one you need without much effort. Simply brilliant, in my opinion.
How many cards can the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder hold?
In total, the wallet can hold up to 15 cards in all its pockets.
The main cardholder can store up to 6, while the backplate holds up to 9 cards inside. You should be aware that this applies to non-embossed cards only. The embossed ones will take a little more space, but not much more than 2 cards worth of storage.
How many cash bills can the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder hold?
The backplate can easily hold around 10 cash bills beneath it, folded twice. Since it doesn’t have any edges, it can hold all types of currencies and keep them safe from falling off.
Is the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder water-resistant?
This is one of those wallets that don’t really have strong water protection. Although aluminum is a strong metal that doesn’t corrode, the wallet is still open and will let through a lot of water, potentially even from smaller splashes.
If it does fall in the water, chances are that all your cards and cash bills will get really wet and possibly damaged, so you should be careful with it when walking near larger bodies of water.
Cleaning, on the other hand, is quite simple if all the contents are removed from the pockets.
Weight and size
We’ve already mentioned how this wallet is one of the slimmest wallets ever made. Its precise dimensions are:
- width: 4.1 in / 10.5 cm
- height: 2.3 in / 6 cm
- depth: 0.29 in / 0.75 cm
The wallet weighs around 3 oz / 87 g. When it comes to minimalist wallets, that’s not exactly light, as there are many lighter wallets out there, but the weight itself is still far from heavy.
This largely comes to the materials used. Aluminum weighs much more than leather or carbon fiber, and it’s a price that has to be paid in order to get the benefits of such a strong metal.
Customer satisfaction
Ekster has one of the most satisfied customer bases in the world. Ekster products have great feedback based on thousands of positive reviews, and the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder is no exception.
Reviews and rating
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder has an astonishing 4.9/5 stars rating out of 5700 reviews on the Ekster website.
Even on Amazon, where the reviews are much more transparent and reliable, the wallet has gathered 4.5/5 stars from around 1000 ratings. It’s obvious that almost all of the customers have loved this wallet.
Known issues and problems
Even with such impressive feedback, it’s hard to expect the wallet to work flawlessly. Granted, it was hard to find an issue, but I would still like to mention a few problems that might emerge if you buy this wallet.
The most notable one is that you can’t ever overstuff the cardholder part. Putting even one more card than what it can hold can get them stuck inside, without you being able to get them out. The button can’t push them out efficiently, and you’ll have some trouble if you mistakenly put 7 instead of 6 cards in.
Another small issue I could notice was with the plastic inner parts of the wallet. On the website, Ekster has mentioned only the aluminum used for the design. However, they haven’t mentioned any plastic at all, although it seems like the whole inner parts and the push button are made from it. This doesn’t necessarily lower the build quality, but it does make the wallet much more susceptible to damage if it falls or hits a hard surface.
Ekster Aluminum Cardholder vs Ridge Aluminum
One of the most popular competitors of Ekster is the Ridge brand, with their iconic Ridge Aluminum wallet directly challenging the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder.
The two wallets cost roughly the same and use the same material in their build. They also have a similar storage capacity, as the Ridge can hold up to 12 cards inside of it, with a separate band or clip for cash bills.
However, the two brands used diametrically different designs for these products, as the Ridge is a completely open wallet, made out of two plates that create an open pocket between them.
This is something similar to the backplate pocket of the Ekster wallet, except that the Ekster also has another enclosed pocket that offers much quicker access to the contents inside.
I would recommend the Ekster wallet to people who like the quick access enclosed pocket, and the Ridge one to people who appreciate an open-frame minimalist design. You can see my full Ridge Aluminum review if you that wallet sounds like a better option.
Who should not buy the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder?
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder is a great, universal wallet with lots of capabilities. However, there are still some types of people who wouldn’t benefit much from it.
First, this definitely isn’t the right choice for people who don’t like hard case wallets and appreciate leather ones much more. Aluminum is great, but lots of people simply don’t like to carry a metal object in their pockets and prefer a smooth leather wallet to take care of things. See my guide on the best leather wallets if you want something softer and smoother in your pockets.
Next are people who happen to mostly use embossed cards. This is not something you have control over, as it’s the bank or the company, or some other institution that chooses what type of card you get. However, embossed cards will take a lot of space out of the pocket and you’ll be left with much lower storage than what’s advertised.
Adventurers and tactical geeks also won’t be too fond of wallets like this one. This particular Ekster model doesn’t have any special tactical features coming with it and is simply a basic cardholder. It’s really efficient, but not exactly feature-full, so see my guides on the best outdoors wallets and the best tactical wallets if that’s what you need.
And finally, the price is something to consider as well, as it won’t suit people who are currently looking for something cheaper. Check out my guides on the best wallets under $50 and the best wallets under $30.
Who should buy the Ekster Aluminum Cardholder
You should definitely consider buying this wallet if you are a person who carries a lot of cards with them daily. This wallet can store more than a dozen of cards and some cash as well, while also keeping them safe and protected.
The Ekster Aluminum Cardholder would also be appreciated by people who love quick access pockets. If you’ve had a wallet with a push-button before, you will instantly recognize the quality and usefulness of this feature, and if you’ve never had one, you will be very pleasantly surprised.
Overall, it’s a great choice for anyone looking for a spacious aluminum wallet with premium quality and durability. It’s strong, safe, functional, made out of great materials, and has one of the smoothest, slimmest, minimalist designs.
Where to buy the Ekster Aluminum from?
Ekster Aluminum Cardholder Specifications
| Type | minimalist |
| Max n. of cards | 15 |
| RFID blocking? | yes |
| TSA compliant? | yes |
| Materials used | aluminum, elastic fabric, plastic |
| Height | 4.1 in / 10.5 cm |
| Width | 2.3 in / 6 cm |
| Depth | 0.29 in / 0.75 cm |
| Weight | 3 oz / 87 g |
| Features | RFID, Expandable aluminum backplate, quick access button |
| Water resistance | none |
| Warranty | one year |
| Return period | 45 days |
