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booq bags

Filed under: Life — Thomas @ 13:11

2009-06-09
13:11

At home, close to the toilet because I've needed it about 20 times over two hours yesterday evening, and a bunch more this morning. Sigh.

With such a low energy level I decided to go through some of my pending tasks, picking out low-hanging fruit. That's one of the situations in which a GTD system pays off - those wasted days of low-energy where you basically want to execute simple mechanic tasks on some list without needing to do the thinking of which those tasks are in the first place.

One of those tasks is to replace my venerable booq backpack that I got right after moving to Barcelona more than 5 years ago. It has served me well, with a few minor problems along the way (the felt on the carrying handle tearing for example, now replaced with awesome-looking gaffa tape), and now recently the zipper started tearing, which could be fixable but would just take way too much time.

I'm sure there might be just as good or better bags from other brands, but in our 21st century ecosystem we vote with our cash, so I'm going to buy another booq backpack. (If you are looking for a new bag or backpack, I recommend you give them a look. I have no idea how many people ended up buying one over the years on my recommendations, I hope there are many.)

This time I went with the BOA 3M without the Vyper sleeve. The Vyper sleeve looks awesome and cool, but basically my laptop sleeve from the previous Booq backpack still works fine, and has a top pocket (in which I store 2 USB drives, a network card, some pens, earplugs, some spare batteries) and a back pocket in which I can slide documentation, so that sleeve on its own actually works really well as a light bag just for the laptop.

The sleeve might be a problem by the time I get my next laptop though, because I doubt there will be any more 14 inch 4:3 laptops around by that time. For now it will serve me just fine.

These backpacks don't come cheap (I just paid 185 euros including shipping from Germany) but given the durability of my previous backpack, which I've basically used daily for 5.5 years, I have no doubt the pack will be worth the money.

My only real gripe with my previous backpack was the fact that I would get a sweaty back at the end of my 30 minute walk/metro ride to work. The BOA should be slightly better for that, though I guess all backpacks (except the ones with metal wire frames that lift the pack off your back) make you suffer from a sweaty back.

Looking forward to walking around with my new bag soon ! One task knocked off the list.

1 Comment »

  1. I’ve been looking for a new bag for a while to replace my aging Crumpler bag. Unfortunately, most laptop bags tend to be either too big or stupidly laid out. On the strength of this recommendation, I just ordered a Booq “Taipan” bag for my 12″ laptop. It’s slightly too big for it, but not enough to be a problem I think.

    I’ll let you know how it works out. :-)

    Comment by Philip Paeps — 2009-08-01 @ 16:01

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