» Wednesday, 12 October A.D. 2005
laptop bag
A while back, I invoked lazyweb to suggest a messenger bag. I received one response from Mikey, who stated that he was quite happy with his Commute XL bag from Timbuk2. He did caution, however, that he sometimes found the bag a tad big and suggested that I seriously consider the Commute XL's smaller couson, the Commute. I wound up buying the smaller bag, mostly on Mikey's recommendation and because the Commute came in pretty colors while the Commute XL only came in black. (Checking the Timbuk2 website today, however, I see that the Commute XL comes in a few colors now. Oh well.)
I have been pleased with my purchase thus far. The bag is incredibly well made, possesses a lot of storage space, and has several “attention-to-detail” features that I find very pleasing. For example, the bag comes with a padded compartment for a laptop; the interior of the compartment is lined with a corduroy-textured fabric. The laptop is prevented from falling out by means of a 2-inch wide strap across the top, which velcros down on the outside of the compartment. One might think that the velcro on the strap would get stuck on the fabric lining. Not so! The interior of the compartment has a small area of velcro (the “fuzzy” side, rather than the “pokey” side) to which the strap affixes if it ever falls into the compartment. Very nice. The numerous interior pockets are very well organized and will nicely hold a lot of the knicknacks you need to carry about (cell phone, pens, USB keys, candy, gum, etc.).
I carry a moderate amount of stuff to school with me every day:
- Apple 12-inch PowerBook;
- AC adaptor and cables for the above;
- Lunch (tupperware container, yogurt, various snack-y things, and silverware);
- An assortment of pens;
- 16-ounce Nalgene water bottle;
- Rio Karma MP3 player;
- Papers that I'm currently reading (loose-leaf; I usually slide these into the laptop compartment).
All this stuff fits with room to spare. The bag has been packed with a wider variety of stuff on our recent trip to Michigan, to wit:
- Apple 12-inch PowerBook;
- AC adaptor and cables for the above;
- 1-inch thick binder of papers (qualifying exams, gotta love 'em!);
- N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God;
- ESV thinline Bible;
- Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith (about as big as the thinline Bible);
- Two DVDs;
- Firewire cable for the video camera;
- Digital camera;
- USB cable for the digital camera;
- An assortment of pens.
Now, the bag was stretching a little bit to accomodate all of this stuff, but it was still holding up pretty well. I was a bit skeptical about getting the Commute at first because it was smaller than the previous bag I'd been using, but it has accomodated all of my stuff thus far with aplomb.
If any of y'all are looking for a durable, roomy laptop bag, I would highly recommend the Commute (and even the Commute XL, if you need the extra space).
posted by Nate @ 12:27PM