Buying a new computer naturally made me think about buying a new computer bag to put it in, even though I don’t do the amount of travel that I used to do. My old Kensington backpack-style bag has travelled a few hundred thousand miles with me and is showing its age; plus, I wanted to lend out my (still usable) older laptop and it was more convenient to put everthing in the old bag.
Originally designed and made in Australia, although now manufactured in China, I’ve heard good things about Crumpler bags and liked what I saw on their website so went searching for their computer bags in Toronto. I thought that my new laptop would fit in the smaller “Breakfast Buffet” bag, but it was just a bit too tight due to the thickness of the machine, and didn’t leave enough room for the paperwork that I inevitably end up carrying along: the Luncheon bag is a few inches larger and gave me the room that I needed for everything. The bag appears to be pretty much indestructible, although time will tell, and definitely fashionable. I bought the olive green one with an electric orange interior (I figured that the orange exterior wasn’t quite corporate enough), and I can’t imagine that I’ll see very many the same in my travels, which means that no one is going to pick up my bag by mistake. I had to venture into foreign territory to find it: Carbon Computing, a store that caters to those of the Apple persuasion. A very different experience from the usual PC store, where the (invariably male) sales clerk wants to talk about bus speeds regardless of what you’re buying; I was helped by a waif-like young woman whose regular job is in the arts, and she waxed poetic about the bags and how much she loves hers, even though she puts an iMac in it.
The down side: there’s no outside pocket for holding boarding passes and the like while dashing through airports, requiring me to open the front flap completely and dig inside for things that won’t fit in my tiny handbag. That front flap has the stickiest Velcro on it that I have ever seen — I think that you could stick yourself to the ceiling with a small patch of this stuff — so opening the bag is a noisy and slightly energetic activity.
Also on the down side: that Velcro is quite rough, and I managed to abrade one knuckle while digging into an inside pocket that also fastens shut with Velcro.
So how did the bag work out in the end? Was it durable? Have you found a better bag since? I’ve got a 15″ MacBook and I’m going back shopping tomorrow. Would love to hear your thoughts!
I love it, having used it for a year and a half now. The problems that I stated in the original post are still true: no outside pocket is a bit of an inconvenience, and the velcro is pretty noisy when I open it in a conference room. However, the bag still looks like brand new and is proving to be indestructible: it looks as new as the day that I bought it.