Review: Crumpler notebook bags

Most notebook bags look like they have fallen out of corporate IT department, which isn't much good if you want a more stylish look. We have looked at Crumpler bags before and have a couple of new ones to look at.

First up is the Crumpler Rice that costs £69 for this 15” notebook version. There are different models for 13” and 17” widescreen notebooks.

As a notebook bag that doesn't look business-like, we quite like it, and there are six different colours.

Our biggest problem with this bag is common to so many that we look at, while it is nice and snug for the notebook, the power supply is more of a squeeze. We wish bag designers would think about this; even taking the power supply without the power lead has been a problem for me in the past.

A bag that doesn't suffer from this problem is the Crumpler Silver Toy. This is a limited edition version of the Silver Dig bag. There is something of a price premium costing £90 rather than £55.

Finally we have the Slip, a fabric sheet that can be used to protect the notebook screen from the keyboard, wipe the screen clean and be used as a mouse mat.

As a screen wipe it worked very well, cutting through the worst marks we had on our notebook. Though screen damage from a keyboard is rare, it caused no problems when we closed the lid of the notebook.

We weren't convinced at the idea of using it as a mouse pad because of what dirt may be transferred to the screen from the desk and the mouse.

It is also rather expensive; £17 for this 13” version rising to £20 for the 17” widescreen. Our advice is to buy the smallest for screen cleaning – it very nearly covered the keyboard on our 17” notebook anyway.