You may have noticed that this year Apple decided to stop selling its classic Apple leather watch band and there was nothing too special about it. It was just a really nice band made by Apple, and it had a nice buckle on it, a very classic look to complete your Apple watch indeed. Now Apple no longer sells that band, so I’ve been looking for a reliable replacement for everyone who likes Apple watch bands and for everyone who is looking for a good quality Apple watch band. I contacted the guys at “Pad and Quill” cause I wanted to see if they had anything that could compete with that classic leather Apple watch strap. Now after I contacted them, they did just that, they sent over a leather Apple watch band 42mm. This strap is made specifically for the 42 and 44mm versions of the Apple watch. “Pad and Quill” calls this the heritage leather Apple watch band, and it retails for $99.

best apple watch bands 44mm review

So, one of the first things we noticed when we put this Apple watch strap on, as opposed to some of our other bands, it was a little stiff for the first week. But that hard feeling was only momentary. We have been wearing this band for about a month now and about after a week that stiffness was worn off. And we got a nice piece of leather with this Apple watch band, and it should age pretty well over time. We have had “Pad and quill” bands in the past and they just aged nicely. It’s a full grain whiskey leather watch strap; you get nice contrasting sand-colored stitching. The stitching is marine grade and UV resistant and apparently it is used in parachutes and more. But what we care about that it looks nice, and because it’s used in a lot of products that need to be durable, we can safely guess that the stitching inside of this Apple watch band is also extremely durable. And if you’re worried about this thing not being durable, “Pad and quill” offers a 25-year leather warranty on this Apple watch strap. You have a lot of holes on this band as well, so it’s super easy to adjust to almost any wrist size. So if you have a small wrist or even bigger wrist you should find a size to fit you, and we have worn this leather band for about a month now, and the coloration of the leather band seems to be about the same when we got it. Now if you know anything about fine quality leather you know that over time this leather is going to age. If we look at our Apple watch strap, probably we are noticing slight changes so far, but we don’t think that we have worn it long enough to develop that color change just yet. It’s going to get softer over time, and the leather on the band is thick, which we think is going to make it durable compared with the classic buckle of the Apple watch leather strap, the one that they used to sell which they no longer anymore. The leather here is a little bit thicker which makes this watch a little bit better for everyday use. It’s not going to look super dressy, but this one can almost suit any occasion.