Last year, we reviewed Nylon Active Bands from Monowear, which is a very competitive option against Apple’s Woven Nylon bands in terms of quality and price. Followed by Apple’s Sport Loop nylon bands launched last month, Monowear has also refreshed their Nylon line-up with the brand new Nylon Active Vibe Bands.

Monowear Nylon Active Vibe Band – Buy now at $24.99 (Get 10% off with Promo Code: TAKE10)

Followed with similar unibody design as its predecessor, the Monowear Nylon Active Vibe Bands are made from lightweight nylon material. After a week’s usage, our opinions continue to hold up since our previous one in 2016. Despite of the lightweight, it feels smooth, strong and durable, and therefore very comfortable to wear.

The new Active Vibe bands have three new, dedicated color options, namely Cherry, Navy and Pebble. As usual, Monowear backs you up with all colors options to match with your watch hardware, including adapters and buckle. And of course, the bands are compatible with Apple Watch Series 1 & 2, the NEW Apple Watch Series 3, Apple Watch Edition, and Apple Watch Nike+.

Besides new colors, one of the major redesigns, or gimmicky features, is the new color changing patch. The patch will turn brighter in color under heat or sunlight, and return to the original color tunes. This is a pretty innovative idea to be implemented in an Apple Watch Band.

Lastly, without further due, let’s take a closer look at the three bands:

Cherry

Navy

Pebble

What do you think about the Monowear Nylon Active Vibe bands? Let me know in the comments.

As one of the Apple Watch lovers and enthusiasts, and three generations of Apple Watches have been released, we have gone overboard and published over 50 articles reviewing Apple Watch Bands, basically since Day 1 that the first generation Apple Watch was physically delivered.

Most of them comes from the United States and some Asian countries. However, one big name from Europe was missing from the line-up as many of you from Germany might have heard of. The brand is called BandWerk.

About BandWerk

Fascinated by the new potential that Apple Watch offers and excited by the possibility of changing watch straps in seconds, BandWerk aims at offering an alternative that should satisfy both watch enthusiasts and technology enthusiasts to express their styles with luxurious, classic leather watch straps manufactured in Germany of the highest quality at a fair price.

As much featured by a number of Instagram influencers, including Alaska Setups and Nikolay Tarashchenko, BandWerk has already gained considerable amount of exposure in the Apple Watch community. Thanks to the sponsors from BandWerk, we are happy to present you with some of the greatest German craftsmanship from them.

BandWerk Leather Apple Watch Bands featured in this review:

• ZURICH Cordovan | Black – Buy Now at $143
• PARIS Saffiano | Brun – Buy Now at $107
• STOCKHOLM Vintage | Grå – Buy Now at $119

Unboxing 

The BandWerk Apple Watch bands are shipped with the best packaging I have ever reviewed with. Each of the wooden boxes are properly wrapped like a gift with black paper and thin hemptwist, with the BandWerk business card attached. Unwrapping the gift packaging will bring us to the wooden box that contains the Apple Watch band itself, which is also protected by a cloth bag inside the box.

One of the neatest feature here is that the wooden box color actually matches with your Apple Watch and the hardware you ordered. For instance, we have the Space Gray one stored in the darker color wooden box. Overall, very decent unboxing experience here.

Details and impressions

The leather pieces used are of high quality. The Cordovan and Saffiano straps have a two-tone design and have neat stitching on the edge of both sides of the leather. Due to the thickness, the leather is on the moderately stiff side however has softened over a week’s usage and gradually fits better around my relatively small wrist.

The straps have two loops for securing the other longer strap. The one closest to the buckle is fixed and the other one is free. As a traditional design, the buckle uses a buckle tongue and adjustment holes. All straps come with nine holds so it basically fits most wrist sizes as you may concern.

Like most of the Apple Watch band manufacturers, BandWerk allows you to tailor make the stainless steel hardware (adapter and buckle) of the watch band to fit for the Apple Watch you are rocking with. Customers can also upgrade the Apple Watch band to butterfly clasp by adding $22.80 to any of the purchase.

In this review, we have the Space Gray and Silver Stainless Steel hardware going along with the watch bands. The quality is pretty good. It is frictionless to slide in the adapter to the Apple Watch housing. The buckle also fits in well with the width of the band. This has made fastening the buckle extremely easy without struggling with friction and size mismatch as some cheaper quality ones may have.

Galleries

Last but not least, as usual, in order to best represent and show you the details of the BandWerk Apple Watch bands in review, we have taken a few high-resolution pictures of each of the bands attached to an Apple Watch and complemented by our daily setups.

ZURICH Cordovan Shell Cordovan leather (Black)

PARIS Saffiano-Leather with elegant embossing (Brown)

STOCKHOLM Soft Vintage leather (Grey)

What do you think about the Leather Apple Watch Bands from BandWerk? Let me know in the comment and be sure to check out more Apple Watch Band reviews and more pictures on the official Instagram.

Our readers know how much we love about the Apple Watch bands manufactured by the luxury band-maker JUUK Design, who is aggressively putting every possible effort into perfecting every single parts and engineering processes of their Apple Watch bands, from design to molding watch band links with flawless curvature.

But before we move on to their latest flagship design, you may wish to mark down our 10% discount code SUPERPHEN10 and check out our previous reviews on their products in the links below. Also stay tuned with JUUK as their Black Friday deal is coming soon:

• • Brushed Revo (38mm)

  • Ligero (38mm & 42mm) – Preview / Review

Introduction

JUUK has just released a new addition to their line-up of premium metal Apple Watch bands, namely Vitero, where its design is inspired by racing stripes and tire treads of both vintage and modern sports cars. Continuing the usage of high-grade, strong yet lightweight 6000 series aluminum, JUUK has put forward a dual stage hard anodization process in order to achieve this industry-leading, truly unique two-color design.

Specifications

• Made of 6000 series hard anodized aluminum
• 316L stainless steel double push button butterfly deployment buckle
• Weighs 55 grams
• Fits all generations of the 42mm Apple Watch.

Buy now – All colors at $149

Thanks to the sponsors from our good friend JUUK Design again, in this review we will showcase with the following color options:

• Vitero Crimson (42mm)
• Vitero Cerulean (42mm)
• Vitero Citron (42mm)

There are a few more options you may find on JUUK and below are some of the sample shots for your preview:

Unboxing

The unboxing experience has again improved over generations of products from JUUK. Honestly speaking, packaging for Vitero band has much improved over the Ligero Band, and it is well thought from customer’s perspective.

The packaging has fine color printing of the product image on both the front cover and the inside, with insignificant color difference against the actual product inside.

There is magnet on the side so you can easily open to reveal the contents. The Vitero Band is right there sitting in the EVA foam, after you lift up the transparent cover on top of it. What you should expect inside the box includes the following:

• 1 x Vitero Apple Watch Band of choice
• 1 x Link removal tool
• 3 x Spare pins for links
• 1 x JUUK Paper card with instructions

One thing I do miss in the package is a high quality micro-fibre cloth that I was able to get in their previous products. But this is not the key issue here. Let’s take a look at every parts of the bands in detail:

Full band:

Flatlay view:

Adapter:

Inner blushed finish:

Butterfly Buckle:

Impressions and Thoughts

I have been swapping the three bands around over the week while travelling aboard and have the following thoughts and comments over the bands:

About build quality:

• The Vitero band is light-weight yet slightly heavier than the Ligero band as far as I could feel it on the wrist. It is a very good match with Apple Watch Sport or Apple Watch Nike+ that have light-weight aluminum casing.
• The band curves around the wrist pretty well and fells more attached than the Ligero band.
• The links and butterfly buckle feel solid and strong. I could feel it especially during the link removal process that a good amount of force is required.
• As the color is hard anodized, the color will not be rubbed off by daily use or sweat. It is easy to be cleaned as well.

About design:

• The design is new to general public as it is very different from what people expect from an Apple Watch band and most would only know about the geniue bands from Apple. I hung around and I could get attention, inquires and compliment for this cool style band.
• The Vitero Crimson, casually known as the “Iron Man” version, is indeed a really sharp and stand-out watch band preferably going with leisure outfits.
• The Space Gray bands matches well with my Space Gray 3rd generation Nike+ Apple Watch. It looks cool but stays low profile as well.
• I do recommend getting multiple strip colors to your liking that match your frequent outfit so you will feel the style and color combination of the band blend in with your outfit.

Conclusions

Overall speaking, JUUK Design is not only keeping up their product quality and customer experience, but instead aiming higher every time with incredible creation that leads even further in the luxury Apple Watch band market. The Vitero band, again, is shipped as a perfectly designed, engineering and manufactured full package. It is definitely a great addition to your Apple Watch band collections.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to the blog and follow our Instagram so you won’t miss any exclusive pictures and more similar reviews coming up.

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It has been a relatively slow year for the Apple Watch band community and market that we could only managed to have a few new good bands to review and recommend. Not only due to the fact that the Apple Watch design has not been changed so far over the few iterations causing less room for more innovative design on the watch bands can be achieved, but also there are major players that dusted indie or more local brands turning out to be buried gems.

FinWatchStraps is one of those that we have all missed. Based in Helsinki, Finland, and inspired by the beautiful Nordic nature and lakes, FinWatchStraps crafts products by orders individually, with high-quality ecological, durable materials and leather. Specializing  in handmade, personalized customizable leather watch straps, they processes each unique orders with passion so that they match perfectly with the design of the watch of the client, and hand craft it to perfection.

Thanks to generous sponsor from FinWatchStraps, we are going to take a look at couple of their watch straps made of genuine Horween Leather from Chicago Tannery.

Specifications

• Thickness of the leather at 2.2 mm
• Durable waxed thread for stitching
• Band length: Small: 115mm/70mm; Medium: 125mm/75mm; Large: 135mm/80mm
• Adapter color: Silver or Black
• Buckle: Stainless steel polished (w/wo rounded corners), matte, or black polished
• Stitching color: Dark Brown, Grey, Orange, Black, Olive, Bright Red Dark Blue, Yellow, Beige

Horween Derby English Tan Leather Apple Watch band

• Buy now on eBay for $51 with free shipping
• Buy from FinWatchStraps eShop for US$39.57 (Shipping excluded)

Burgundy Horween Chromexcel Pull-up Leather Apple Watch band

• Buy now on eBay for $44 with free shipping
• Buy from FinWatchStraps eShop for US$39.57 (Shipping excluded)

Unboxing

The FinWatchStrap shipments arrived in envelopes and the bands are put into a color-matched gunny bags. There is also a simple thank you card with a 15% discount codeif you order again. Very simple packaging to get the job done yet offers a great storage option that can be easily put away without taking up much space.

Review and impressions

The Horween Derby English Tan Leather Strap comes with a relatively raw, rugged style. With minimal stitching work only near the polished steel buckle and adapters, as well as on the free loop, the tanned leather strap has a warm vintage style overall. The leather surface has refined finish whereas edges and the back side have a rough, rubbed finish which feels good on touching and wearing on wrist, however does less resistant to sweat and stain.

The strap leather is on the thin and soft side so it will not take time to get around the wrist perfectly, yet strong enough that I do not feel I will break it in any way. There are quite a number of adjustment holes on the band so it can basically fit a wide range of wrist size. Nonetheless, you can customize the length of the band at ordering as mentioned in the specification section.

The adapter quality is excellent. No friction at all when sliding into the slot on the Apple Watch, nor does it stick out any side. The buckle looks classic, well-polished and strong in nature.

Moving on to the Burgundy Horween Chromexcel Pull-up Leather Strap. It shares some similarity as the Horween Derby English Tan Leather Strap such as the stitching, and finishing on the edges and back side. However, it stands out with a more subtle feel with smaller buckle and an additional fixed steel loop near the buckle to not only help secure the longer strap better, but also add a bit more style when wearing it.

This Burgundy Horween Chromexcel Pull-up Leather Strap does look a bit more hipster-style aesthetically, especially with the darker color option considered here. It looks better on a Stainless Steel watch than a Space Gray or Black one as it shows more contrast in terms of color pairing. I do like this band more especially when I need to have formal outfit during most time throughout the week.

Conclusions

Followed by Da Luca and Black Forest Atelier, FinWatchStraps is a great option you can go for Horween leather Apple Watch bands without breaking the bank, especially when you are located in Europe region. Despite of criticism that it looks kinda old and used, a Horween leather strap is indeed a very nice companion with Stainless Steel Apple Watch and it does give a vintage feel and style that can easily fit in both business attire and smart casual outfit. Moreover, there are quite some styles to choose from and as well a number of options that you can customize your order from size to stitching. I definitely recommend you give a shot to FinWatchStraps if you like their style there.

What do you think about the Horween leather straps from FinWatchStraps? Let me know in the comments and be sure to check out more of their Apple Watch bands and other watch bands.

About Horween Leather

Horween and Chromexcel are the original pull-up leather produced using a bark retannage from a proprietary recipe, followed by genuine blend of natural oils and greases. The leather is characterized by a rich pull-up in full aniline, hand rubbed finishes. For more information, please visit www.horween.com.

Recently I was introduced to Araudi, a new start-up that is hand-crafting creative, uniquely designed leather products including iPhone cases, Apple Watch bands, wallets, etc. Shout out to Araudi for sending over a combo of same styled iPhone X leather case and Apple Watch band for trying out and review for today.

Products in this review include:

• “Mountain Style” iPhone X Leather Case – Buy now at US$99
• The “Mountain” Apple Watch Band (US$99)  – more styles from US$49 only

The Mountain Apple Watch Band

Let’s take a look at the Apple Watch band first and my first impression is that the Apple Watch band feels pretty legit. In specific details my impressions are as below:

• The design is unique and looks exactly the same as advertised.
• The stitching feels solid into the leather band.
• The inner calf leather is soft on touch even not any premium.
• No strong smell on dye or glue.
• Free loops are not locked to the band allows flexibility to secure the band.
• High quality color-matching aluminum buckle and adapters.
• Long watch bands with 5 adjustment holes, flexibile for most wrist sizes
• The leather band is more on the stiff side that needs to be worn out for comfort
• Do not expect handmade leather goods have perfect finishing as machine-manufactured ones

“Mountain Style” iPhone X Case

The second review unit is a leather case with the same Mountain Style as the Apple Watch band mentioned above. It looks good at first glance and the leather feels comfortable in hand.

It is not perfect as handmade, it is still worth attention if you prefer having something of no common design. My impressions are as below:

• The design comes with unique pattern rarely found in the market.
• Quality leather feels durable yet soft and comfortable in hand
• Solid stitching for the design patterns
• Slightly raised edge around protruding camera
• Precise cutouts for ports and buttons
• Easy to put onto and remove from the iPhone
• Again, it is not as perfect as machine outputs

Final Thoughts

I do love the concept that Araudi has on crafting sets of handmade, leather accessories for both Apple gadgets and essentials with unique, creative designs. For a price at $99, despite the fact that it is not the cheapest option you can get in the market, yet the leather quality both feels good on hand and the design is aesthetically unique. The Apple Watch band is in reality a more decent choice comparatively, yet hard to justify for the price.

Araudi is diligently catching up to come up with more designs and improvements on some rough edges that coud potentially make their products more compelling in the fiercely competitive market, especially when they are setting a mid-range price point.

What do you think about Araudi leather Apple Watch band and iPhone X case? Let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe to the blog for more reviews like this in future. If you like our contents, consider being our Patreon for as little as $1 a month to support the site for more awesome product reviews.

Back in 2014, with my iPhone 5S, I grabbed a leather wallet sleeve from SENA which served a great deal of purposes that it gave the phone a professional, premium, minimalistic outfit, as well as the functionality of being able to snap in couple credit/debit cards so I could just grab it on the go.

Couple years ago, I opted into SENA’s leather sleeve for my iPad Air 2. I had been searching for a few options and I picked SENA for its quality and value for money as it has been on sale for 50% off as of today.

A few months back, I got a leather wallet case from SENA for my brand new iPhone X (at that moment). These two turned out to be my travel gear immediately when I needed my iPad for sketching graphs and flow charts. Thanks to SENA’s generous sponsor again, I was able to add a few more nice accessories to my travel gear and setup.

Products in this review:

• Racer Leather Snap On Case for iPhone X – Buy now at $54.95
• Heritage Leather Watch Band for Apple Watch – Buy now at 69.95
• Leather Watch Case for Apple Watch – Buy now at $79.95

Impressions

The racing strip design of the Racer Snap On Case is inspired by interiors of roadster. The raised surface, despite making the case less slim than other competitor, allows fingers naturally fit into the grooves of its nicely-stitched trapunto design.

The Racer-style leather case has a spectacular quality in terms of usage of genuine leather material that has a complete pleasant feel on touch and holding in the band. It rests firmly in my palm thanks to the raised surface and soft touch around the edges and corners.

The futuristic and more towards masculine design makes the iPhone case a very stylish addition to both my outfit and travel setups that matches with my other gear and accessories such as fragrance from Atelier Cologne with a leather case and the latest leather passport cover from Smython.

The other great travel companion is the Apple Watch Leather Travel Case, which is literally a very premium charging stand with a sleek and low-profile gunmetal accent, serves perfectly as an aesthetic decoration on workdesk or bedside nightstand.

The European tumbled leather-wrapped case has a magnetic closure lid that helps secure the pretty expensive magnetic Apple Watch charging cable. This makes the case an excellent travel gear with me that both looks and works well and professional, despite it is not the most compact option I have ever had.

Last but not least, which is my top favorite out of the batch, is the Heritage Leather Apple Watch Band. This turns to be my top Apple Watch band of choice regardless of occasion and outfit, for its premium quality on every parts across the tumbles leather band, brushed finished metal buckle and adapters, as well as leather lining and traditional stitching styles.

Having been using for about three months time over my numbers of business trips, the leather band has grown very well and get richer in texture and color depth with time which is on par with Apple’s Classic Buckle bands, while the band retains its physical condition with good strength.

I would say this is the best $70 you can spend on a premium leather Apple Watch band, as far as all the leather bands I have personally used and reviewed. The classic and vintage aesthetic will definitely get you with compliments on this fashionable choice.

What do you think about the leather gear from Sena? Let me know in the comments.

If you like the contents here, be sure to subscribe to the blog, follow us on Instagram and consider being a Patron for as little as $1 a month to support the future contents.

Featured by a number of Instagram influencers, Meridio from Italy is one of the most the prominent leather Apple Watch strap manufacturers in the community. Thanks to the sponsor from Meridio, we are reviewing a few of their Apple Watch bands today, as far as I tested over the past couple months during my business trips.

Before heading into the full review, check out the promotional video from Meridio to get familiar with this brand on their Apple Watch straps:

Meridio leather Apple Watch bands featured in this review:

• Heritage (42mm only, Forest Black) – Buy now for $99
• Nappa (Chestnut) – Buy now for $89

Heritage

Superior quality and gorgeous traditional look: Forest Black is truly a sight to behold. With its rugged vintage design and buttery soft, natural feel from day one, this high-quality leather band is an exquisite compliment to your Apple Watch, adding a bit of class and vintage spirit to cool technology.

The Forest Black Heritage strap is the one that I brought along in my last business trip. It has a very clean, minimalistic vintage look without much stitching work done on a genuine calf leather with very soft texture in nature out of the box. So there is no necessity to wear it out in order to fit your wrist.

That said, it deformed pretty quickly as I used a few times and I could not make it back to anywhere close to new condition for better photography. The good thing is, the strap is very comfortable to wear thanks to its nature.

Another good thing is, noticeably speaking, I did sweat quite a bit when I traveled around South Asian countries under the hot weather. Surprising it held up pretty well against sweat, in which some other bands I used got color washed and stink on the wrist but this one did not. Nevertheless, $99 for a leather Apple Watch strap is still on a premium side but rest assured that you will get a quality band here.

Nappa

A classic tone luxury Apple Watch band with exceptional comfort and great character. A wonderful brown nappa texture gives this model a unique feel and, at the same time, a very stylish look; a great compliment to your favorite timepiece.

Made of genuine nappa leather originated from Italy, the Meridio Nappa leather Apple Watch strap has a more classic look which makes it a great alternative for Apple’s Classic buckle. Not only that it has a similar type of traditional stitching and lining align the bands, but also a very soft touch on the quality leather that I appreciate the most.

Despite the fact that this Nappa strap is slightly lower cost than the Heritage, it matches with my personal preference and outfit better thanks to nappa texture it has. Not only because that the Chestnut color that I received for the review unit looks amazingly matching with this type of leather, it also makes total sense for people like me to opt for this we most of the time I am in business or smart casual outfit.

What do you think about Meridio Apple Watch straps as well as their other accessories in your experience? Let me know in the comments below and if you like the contents here, be sure to subscribe to the blog, follow us on Instagram and consider being a Patron for as little as $1 a month to support the future contents.