Hands On: Built Laptop Sleeves and Bags

Tag : Neoprene Material

It's summer, a time when green things and sunshine inspire you toget away from the warm glow of your computer screen and into theoft-forgotten analog world outside your door. But no real gadgetgeek can handle Internet withdrawal for more than a couple hours,which usually means lugging a laptop everywhere you go. Thankfully,there's no shortage of bags, sleeves and satchels to helpfacilitate our portable PC needs.
Built, a company with an all-encompassing love of neoprene and apenchant for color contrasts, sent us a pair of its products, the Cargo Laptop Sleeve and Laptop Porter , and I must say I'm impressed with the design and comfort of both,if not the price.


First up, the Cargo Laptop Sleeve comes in three sizes, and four colors, for laptops of the 13, 15,and 17-inch varieties. The olive-colored model Built sent us looksgood, and the loops of stitches around one side add visual flairwhile creating three external pockets of varying size foraccessories.
The largest pocket could easily hold a large external hard drive orthe cables and charging brick for your laptop. The medium pocket isa good size for a smaller hard drive or a mouse, and the smallpocket would be right for storing a USB drive, keys, or a small MP3player. Just make sure you get the right size sleeve for yourlaptop, though, because there are no zippers on the sleeve'sexternal pockets: It's just the tension on the neoprene that holdsyour accessories in place. If your laptop doesn't fit snugly in thesleeve, expect things to fall out of the pockets.
Built's $40-to-$50 asking price for the Cargo Laptop Sleeve is abit steep, but the stitching and thick, soft neoprene should keepyour laptop safer than a cheap sleeve.
The $70 Laptop Porter is sort of midway between a sleeve and a full-on laptop bag.Zippered up at the top, with a hand-hole for lifting and carrying,it's a fine sleeve in its own right. But slip the included strapthrough a pair of holes on either side of the sleeve and it becomesa bag; two large exterior compartments on the outside can holdfolders or cables.
The strap literally hangs from stitch-reinforced holes in theneoprene, which makes the elastic material absorb much of the shockand weight of your laptop. The bag is enjoyable to use, though I'mnot sure how well the material will hold up. And be careful whenyou set the bag down, because the exterior pockets don't close.
Again, the tension from your laptop will go a long way towardkeeping things in the external pockets, but I wouldn't be toocomfortable commuting with a bag like this, as the open sidepockets make anything other than flat papers and folders anenticing target for thieves. And if you're not careful, simplysetting the bag down could spill the contents of the pockets ontothe floor. A couple of old-school buttons would have gone a longway towards keeping the bag's contents more secure, without marringthe pleasingly simple aesthetic of the bag.
The Laptop Porter comes in black, brown, or "wood grain black,"which, given the soft neoprene material, looks more like zebra thanwood. And I'm not sure if this is the same for all colors, but thebrown bag I looked at had a bright green zipper and interior. It'svisually interesting, but not for everyone.