Altura Pocket Wallet

Altura's Pocket Wallet is misnamed – its bible-thick spine makes more sense filled with spares than merely cards and cash, and by 'pocket' Altura really means 'jersey pocket only'. This water-resistant pack is perfectly sized for your back pocket and offers a handy all-in-one solution, but it's disappointingly flimsy and fragile for the price.

• Pros: Keeps spares and phone to hand, can be strapped on, very light
• Cons: Looks and feels cheap, screen vulnerable to splitting

At 16 x 9cm, the upper section took my elderly iPhone with room to spare, and it's easy to use touchscreens through the plastic even with the rest of the bag sagging empty. Below the divider is a section that takes a tube, levers and puncture repair stuff pretty neatly, though you could squeeze a compact CO2 system in instead.

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The whole pack is the perfect size and shape to fill a typical jersey or jacket rear pocket, and it sits in them very securely. It's a neat way to leave next to nothing on your bike.

The Pocket Wallet has three slim internal pockets (really slim – think cards, patches, erm, stamps?), but annoyingly they're at the bottom, wedged beneath your tubes etc. They'd be much more accessible on the divider above them.

And that's basically it. Outside is has two sets of slots for running straps through, though no straps are provided. The zip, polyester fabric and heat-welded seams are all water-resistant, so it's happy tied to a bag or tube out in the elements.

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Ours was less happy once the plastic screen split. A 2cm crack appeared along one edge next to the weld, and then a second shorter split ran in towards the centre. It looks like stress damage from squashing or stretching – both things a pocket pack is regularly going to encounter – though I don't remember any obvious time when it could have happened.

Damage aside, the finish is untidy, with seams that don't line up and unsightly crumples in the corners of the window. For such a simple product, the finish doesn't reflect the price. The quality coming from Chinese factories still varies wildly, and it seems Altura hasn't chosen especially well here.

There's a fair amount of competition around the £25 mark, ranging from the Fickaskap Waterproof Phone and Valuables Wallet to the impressive hardshell, silicone-interior Capsular P1. Alternatively you could leave your spares in a saddlepack and waterproof your phone with a Pocpac iPac for £8.

Assuming it stays intact, the Altura Pocket Wallet is well sized and shaped for keeping phones and spares bundled neatly in your back pockets, if rather expensive for what it is.

Verdict

Well-shaped protection for keeping spares and phones handy, but low quality doesn't fit the high price