Finding a case for a unique phone like the BlackBerry Passport can be difficult. So I was a little surprised when the folks at Lucrin sent us not one, but four cases to try out. Now, let’s find out if these cases are worth having a look at.
All of the cases Lucrin makes for the Passport are thin, leather pouches. They won’t provide too much in the way of drop protection, but should certainly prevent scratches, especially if you carry your phone in a pocket or bag with other objects. The slim design also means the phone doesn’t feel significantly bigger in the case – a nice touch, since the Passport wasn’t a small device to begin with.
The leather construction on each case feels very high-quality, as it should be. Each case is handmade from a leather of your choice – depending on which case you’re buying, you can select smooth or granulated leather, crocodile-style calfskin, or real ostrich leather. Any of these choices will be lined with microfiber cloth on the inside. And the customization only gets more extensive from there – you can also choose from up to 26 colours, and select whether or not you’d like the stitching to be colour-matched.
For yet another personalized touch, Lucrin will also allow you to request an engraving up to 50 characters long on your case – our review units were all engraved with our website name, for instance.
The four styles Lucrin offers are a regular old sleeve, a sleeve with a notch in the top-right corner, a sleeve with a pull-up strap for the phone, and a sleeve with a flap at the top. My personal favourite is the pull-up strap – the cases are a rather snug fit, but the strap makes removing your phone quickly much easier.
The notched case also makes it a little easier to pull out the phone, by offering you more surface area to grip. But perhaps more interestingly, it exposes the notification LED, so that you don’t have to remove the phone to see if you’ve missed anything important.
As for the case with a flap, it does provide an extra barrier of protection on the top of the phone, but naturally, don’t expect an OtterBox. It’ll also keep the phone from sliding out of the pouch, but I never found that to be an issue with any of the others.
The regular sleeve case, while not having any standout features, is still very well-built and is also the least expensive of the four. It’s a great choice if you just want a simple, high-quality case to protect from minor bumps and scratches.
In short, Lucrin has created an excellent collection of cases for the Passport. They aren’t ideal for drop protection and it can take a moment to access your phone, but they do a great job guarding from scratches and dust. Most importantly, however, they deliver on the kind of quality that’s appropriate for their high-end price range. If you’re interested in buying one of your own, you can find them all on the Lucrin website here.