Over the last two weeks, we reviewed Mozo’s Lumia 950 brown leather back cover and red leather back cover with gold sides. This week, we tackle the much more understated black leather cover.
Design
Like the red cover (and unlike the brown cover), the black cover features a scaly leather texture. The white cover also shares this texture, but something is strikingly odd about this black cover in particular. Unlike the red and white covers, the black cover’s feel is noticeably smoother, maybe even softer. You don’t really feel the scaly bumps on this cover as you do with the red and white ones.
I have to admit, I have mixed feelings on this. While it still feels premium, the texture feels a bit shallow and faded, like it’s seen years of wear and tear. I can’t quite tell if this is an intentional design or a manufacturing defect, but considering how uniform and polished the texture feels, I’d say it was intentional. Which is weird, considering just how visually similar the black cover is to the red and white.
The sides of the cover are made of a material Mozo calls non-conductive vacuum metal coated PC Plastic. Like the brown leather cover, it retains a silver-metallic look that could easily be mistaken for real metal. This metallic look also colors the buttons. As with all the other back covers, including the default one, the Mozo case doesn’t fully cover the sides, leaving the black gloss that surrounds the screen sticking out and adding depth to the Lumia 950’s appearance.
Compared to the spicy red/gold cover, this black and silver cover is much more understated but no less classy. It looks efficiently gorgeous. The only strange thing about its appearance happens when light is shining on it. It’s smoother, more shallow texture causes the ambient lighting to be much more obvious. In other words, it isn’t “pure black” very often, unlike the red and white cases.
Fit
Like the other Lumia 950 covers, the black Mozo fits very tightly and securely. Strangely, I did encounter a faint bit of creaking for the first two days I had this back cover attached to my phone. After that, the creaking just disappeared. No idea what to make of it.
Ergonomics
Like the brown and red leather covers, the black adds a bit of thickness to the device. It also adds a bit of weight. It also feels like it’s marginally lighter than the red case, though that could purely be a psychological feeling on my part as I’ve grown accustomed to having Mozo cases on my Lumia 950.
Also like the brown and red covers, the silver buttons are a massive improvement over the buttons found on the default back cover. Pressing them feels very crisp and tactile if a bit louder than the default cover.
Thanks to the smoother, more shallow texture mentioned above in the design section, heat output tends to be felt a bit more, as your fingers are much closer to the bones of the device.
Conclusion
While the black cover adds some premium zest to the Lumia 950, I can’t help but feel the black cover is a bit of a step down from the brown and red leather covers I’ve reviewed over the last few weeks. While the fundamentals of the design are virtually identical to the other two, I can’t help but feel like the smoother leather texture ruins the premium ambiance of the cover. Simply put, it doesn’t really feel like I’m touching leather, or at least, less so than the other two.
Still, the black remains a classy and solid choice, and I expect it will be a popular option for those looking to add some more formal finesse to their Lumia 950 devices.
Look forward to the review of the final white leather cover very soon. Thanks once again to Mozo for providing this black leather cover. You can purchase one on the company’s shop here.