Ridge Biflex Wallet Review

I’ve stayed away from Ridge wallets for years — they always looked bulky, too hard (literally made of metals), and too popular (in mainstream product categories, most of the time that’s a concern).

But… they recently released a soft leather and band variant called Biflex, much in the vein of the slimmest wallet currently available (Trove), and had me curious on their take. They have massive scale to do this well, and from the design approach they took, it’s a copy of the way their hard materials wallet works (thumb hole/cut-out for flipping out your cards) while adhering to a slimmer enclosure.

The Great

  • Materials and construction are solid
  • Dimensions are 87 x 57 x 12 mm, which means this is the size of a credit card with no excess materials hanging off
  • The leather sides cover more surface area against the card length than Trove (Trove’s is square with more of the band and tip top of the cards exposed). This is actually a nice counterpoint.
  • Material, stitching, and overall construction feel great in the hand and robust in usage
  • Claims to hold eight cards plus cash with RFID blocking

The Not-So-Great

  • Fitting eight cards with mobility is generous. I have six + a single bill and it’s a tight fit.
  • There are two openings for fingers to slide out or fan out the contents: the half-circle opening against the end of the wallet is easy to use (push), but the hole-cut out in the middle of the side of the wallet on the other side is abysmal to use if the wallet is packed tight.
  • The wallets are inexplicably loaded and unloaded at two different ends of the wallet (e.g., opposite exits for the cards), which requires minor mental stress as I’m still not used to them being extracted from the same side. Why.

Overall

I like this wallet. The materials are elegant and the form factor is superbly minimal. It’s a very slim profile with leather accents to make it more than merely an elastic band wallet, and protects itself contents well.

Their decisions on card extractions aside, it’s a usable, slick object for your pocket. Just don’t anticipate using it for a ton of cash and more than a few cards because its format gets cramped quickly.

Auto-generated description: A wallet filled with cash lies on a wooden floor.