Back in August, dbrand announced it would release its popular smartphone and gadgets skins in a new line made of actual skin — cow skin, to be precise. At the time, all we knew was that they were coming soon, and they’d only be available for a limited time. But it sounds like it was worth the wait. dbrand’s snazzy new leather skins are now up for purchase to ship in December, and it sounds like they’re made out of some pretty good stuff.
In case you aren’t familiar, “leather” doesn’t intrinsically mean that something is high-quality. Some leather is little more than shaved bits stuck together with a vinyl binder or so-called “splits” or “grain-corrected” top-grain leather topped with a fake texture and finish. It’s complicated because there are so many kinds of leather, the names get abused quite a lot, and everyone uses or abuses terms differently (some top-grain leather is good). But the best stuff typically goes by the “full-grain” label, and that’s what dbrand says it’s using.
dbrand highlights the fact that its leather skins are “uncorrected” and will naturally vary from cut to cut, with slight imperfections in their finish and texture. That might sound like a less premium experience if you don’t know how leather works, but it’s actually a good indicator of using a higher-quality material. They’re also vegetable-tanned leather, which means they pick up oils and wear in a way that causes them to “patina” and change over time. Again, not everyone likes that sort of thing, and it does mean there’s some extra care involved (like preventing it from getting wet or stained), but as something of a leather nerd, I find it a much more premium experience than most chrome-tanned leathers in most applications.
The skins are available in three colors: tan, brown, and black. If it’s anything like normal veg tan, the lighter the color you get, the more it’s likely to patina and darken with time, but all three colors will show wear.
Just because it’s leather doesn’t mean it’s chunky, though. dbrand was apparently able to make the new leather skins 0.5mm thick. That means the skins will be a tiny bit thicker than dbrand’s usual (0.23mm) ones, but still thin enough they won’t make your phone feel huge.
You can also get a leather-skinned Rubik’s cube or pyramid — which seems hard.
In short, as AP’s resident leather expert, these sound like they’re made out of very good leather — or, at least, not bad leather. And as someone envious of Nomad’s leather skins and their failure to make it to Android models, I’m really excited to see what these are like. (I’m planning a pretty in-depth review, in fact.)
Stock for the new skins is limited, and dbrand’s listing has a 30-day timer that started counting down this morning, so we assume sales for the new skins could end in a month. If you don’t want to wait for our full review (and probably a thousand close-up macro shots of leather), you can buy the skins right now, and they’ll ship in December. Prices vary — a 14″ MacBook Pro skin will run you $70, but phone skins are $35, and dbrand has them for most of the popular Samsung, OnePlus, and Google phones going back the last few years.
As someone that never really got excited by the idea of slapping a vinyl decal on the back of my thousand-dollar-plus phone, I’m very excited to see what these new, more premium leather skins will be like, so anticipate our review.
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