Product: Brenthaven Laptop Bags	Company: Brenthaven
Web: www.brenthaven.com	Phone: 800-803-7225
Platform: Your shoulder and the Tarmac	SRP: see below Street Price: same
Cred Rating: (Titanium 1 & Mobile Topload) (Mobility 1 & Mobile Urban)	Special Award: Object Value (all models)

Anyone who's been keeping score at home knows that we here at Street Tech Labs are suckers for great design and top-shelf materials and construction. So it's no wonder that we're huge fans of the Brenthaven product line. These folks make laptop bags as if design, materials, construction, attention to detail, and listening to customer feedback actually matters. Gee, what a revolutionary concept!

The folks at Brenthaven sent us four new bags to check out. They have all of the construction and design excellence we've detailed in previous Brenthaven reviews (see links below), with a few additions and improvements.

The first bag we tested was their Titanium 1 bag, one that Apple specifically asked them to design. As you probably have heard (or know from first-hand experience), the TiBook LOOKS awesome, but it seems as though you need only look at it to scratch it. To address this, Brenthaven designed a very handsome bag that ports many of the features of their larger bags to a slightly smaller, lighter (3.9 lbs.) piece of luggage. The Titanium 1 bag has two main compartments, one with the all-important protective sleeve for your TiBook (plus accessories and files), and one for organizing your pens, PDA, phone, etc. At US$150, this is a really nice value in a Brenthaven bag (suitable for any laptop).

The second bag is one of our fave Brenthaven's to date. The Mobility 1 ($80) is an extremely handsome Messenger-type bag, also designed exclusively for Apple, to carry 12" and 14" iBooks. At first, we thought it was little more than the Brenthaven inner sleeve with a flap and a strap, but they managed to squeeze an inner sleeve into this little baby (so there's several layers of padding AND an airspace to provide max protection in a fall). Even though this bag only has one compartment, they still managed to fit in two hardware pockets, one PDA pocket, two quick-access pockets, one zippered mini-pocket, and a magazine slip.

We loved the transportability of Brenthaven's Mobile Brief bag, with its telescoping handle, smooth-as-silk Rollerblade wheels and excellent suspension system, but the horizontal orientation of the bag looked a little clunky on the frame. Brenthaven apparently got similar feedback from customers, which led to the development of the Mobile Urban.

The Mobile Urban ($380) is basically the Mobile Brief in a vertical rather than horizontal orientation on the frame. They were also able to drop .7 lbs (down to 9 lbs.), which of course, in a wheeled bag, especially one as well-balanced and well-wheeled as this one, makes less of a difference. The ease of manipulating the telescoping handle is another stand-out feature with these mobile bags. Collapsing the handle into the handle compartment on the back of the bag is extremely fluid. There is simply no comparison when I go from "driving" and manipulating the handle on the cheap luggage we bought last year with wheeling this bag around.

The Mobile Topload ($400) is the ultimate mobile computer case for those of us who feel compelled to carry ungodly amounts of gear around. It has over 2400 cubic inches of storage space and tips the scale at nearly ten pounds. Again, without the Brenthaven wheel and suspension system, this thing would be a real ball and chain. But if you feel the need to travel with most of the contents of your office, this bag will pay for itself in saved chiropractic bills.

Out of all of these bags, we like the Mobility 1 and Mobile Urban the best. The Mobility 1 is a great way to own a Brenthaven bag without having to take out a second mortgage on your home to afford it. It's got the least amount of space of all these bags, but you really probably shouldn't be carrying more crap than it can hold anyway. For those who have trouble letting go, we recommend the Mobile Urban (and maybe some counseling).

Other Brenthaven bags we've fauned over:

Mobile Urban

Urban Backpack

Expandable Topload

Buy Us at MicroWarehouse (Note: The Titanium 1 and Mobility 1 are NOT availble from Microwarehouse, but the follow-up bags, Titanium 2 and Mobility 2 (which we have not tested) are. The regular Brenthaven line (e.g. the Mobile Urban and Mobile Topload) are not carried by Microwarehouse.)

- Gareth Branwyn [4/30/02]

Check out our other offerings:
Today's Software
Today's Digital Living

©2002 Carton Donofrio Interactive/Gareth Branwyn
Site art by John Bergin