Background
I have two laptops. I have
The Shiny, and I have the
most leatherific bag to tote it around in. It is, in fact, one of
these, here. I mean, it is not physically possible for me to love it more than I do. (I even referred to it in the past as The Leather.)
I also, of course, have a
BookBook, which I use when the other one is too bulky or if I just intend to carry it short distances.
At work, I have a Dell Precision M6500, which is also 17" (and henceforth, I shall refer to it as
The Matte (Get it? Shiny? Matte? Oh, I
slay me!). Which, of course, should not be confused with
Matt. But I digress.
I have the nylon sleeve they gave me for The Matte, and I am sort of required by the nature of my job to bring it to work and take it home with me. Oh, and not lose it. They were very specific on that point . . .
On top of all that, I have a leather backpack from Wilson's Leather that is not altogether unlike
this one, here. I use it for everything from accessories for the computers to books I'm reading, gaming supplies, and during
Dragon*Con, I live out of it during the day. I shall call it The Backpack.
Problem
Since I have to bring The Matte with me, and I like to have The Shiny with me in case I need to work on something personal (like writing) during work hours, and I use The Backpack to carry other things I might need, I end up coming to work every morning with The Backpack strapped to my back, The Shiny in The Leather over my left shoulder and neck, and The Matte in its nylon sleeve over my right shoulder and neck.
In short, it cuts off circulation to my brain. :) And it's unwieldy trying to walk through the narrow gaps in the parking lot laden like a native guide in a 1940s "safari to deepest, darkest Africa" movie, in which the unlikely pair of usually pasty and annoyingly upperclass white protagonists with fakey-fakey "mid-Atlantic" accents that talk too fast insist on bringing a full bone china tea service—complete with tea cozy—out into the bush so they can "take tea" on the veldt whilst badly integrated, early green-screened lions stalk and kill equally badly integrated, early green-screened zebras or wildebeests in the background, and you ask yourself, "Why doesn't M!buk!u the native guide just
break the tea set and leave bwana and bwanette to get their
own damned tea?"
<sigh> Where was I? Oh, right.
Desire
I'd really, really,
really like a rolling bag that would securely hold both The Shiny and The Matte
and have room for the other junk in The Backpack.
Now, The Shiny is thin and light without The Leather. The Matte is . . . well, not. It's a lot heavier, and the power cord and such aren't designed to fit in the sleeve that comes with it. I leave those home, anyway, since there were two sets. But if I'm traveling . . .
Searching online for "dual laptop bags" or "bag to hold two laptops," I run into . . . pretty much
nothing. There doesn't seem to be anyone out there, anywhere, that makes something like what I want. To wit: something wheeled and big enough to hold two 17" laptops and accessories. That isn't the size of a Hum-V and twice as expensive. (I mean, there's the
Saddleback Leather Duffel Overnight Bag, which I'm practically drooling over, but at nearly $600, it seems a bit overblown, especially considering I'd need to get a couple of sleeves to put the laptops in (probably not
this, since that's another $75, each) to make sure they don't jostle around too much.)
So I ask The Hivemind (I'm going to stop doing that, now): Do you know of a suitable rolling bag that is sizable enough to carry all this stuff, doesn't cost a fortune, and won't disintegrate the first time it's used? (You'd likely be shocked by how many things do.)
I'm more interested in things you've actually used/seen than in you doing the same Google search I did and finding the same links I did, without much useful information on exactly how much will fit into the thing. Let's assume that I know how to use Google and that I've done so rather exhaustively. :)
I prefer leather (Really? Shocking . . . ), but any material will do if it's good quality.
I seldom fly, so the whole 'will it fit in an overhead bin or underneath an airline seat' thing is not really a concern for me. Nor is making it easy for TSA to search the bag.
And, since one person I mentioned this to went on at some length about how I should "just" get my IT department at work to image my work laptop and use The Shiny to run a virtual Windows XP, thereby eliminating the need for two computers . . . that isn't really an option. For either me or the IT group here.
I'll be visiting various stores and looking in person, too, of course. And probably drool some more over Saddleback's products. But if you have any recommendations, do let me know. :)
