For the minimalists among us, electricbaby (Warning: one of their vinyl bag styles is rated PG13) offers a stylish way to protect your laptop from scratches and light bumps and bruises. Their stretch-fit sweater laptop sleeves come in 4 different designs and in sizes that fit 12 – 17 inch laptops. They were kind enough to send me all 4 of their designs. Check out the pix…
Priced from $28 – $33.50 (depending on size), each one comes wrapped in cellophane and in its own drawstring cloth bag.
These woven sleeves are thick but stretchy. They are soft inside and out and offer a nice layer of padding. Here you see my 15″ Macbook sticking out of the 15.4″ version of the sleeve. If you’re going to buy one for the same laptop, I think would recommend the 17″ size if you don’t want your laptop sticking out of the top.
electricbaby even offers zippered vinyl cord bags for $12-$15. You might think that a vinyl bag would be pretty lame, but they are actually quite nice.
To share the love, I’m going to give away these sleeves. 1 sleeve to 4 different people… If you want to be one of the winners, just leave a comment to this gear diary post with 1 thing/idea/suggestion that you thing would make The Gadgeteer a better site. I’ll announce the 4 winners on 5/6. :o)
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When I heard you mentioned “sweater”, the first thing that came into my mind was “static”. I hope this is not the case here.
Hmm, I think I would like to see long term reviews here. See how well products cope with everyday (ab)use. =)
I like the simplistic design of these cases.
As for the website…..how about some podcasts or video reviews/demos of products, software, etc? Text and photos are great but so are movies and/or sound. 🙂
I’d like to see more Gadgeteer Podcasts. The first two were good, I’d like to see more, maybe even with viewer interviews.
Do the bags not close? Velcro would be appropriate I think.
I would rather the Gadgeteer had few ads, though of I see that they are a necessary evil. The inteliTXT are the most intrusive, perhaps they could be first to go.
Hai:
I haven’t noticed any static issues. I’m sure almost any cover / case for a laptop could potentially have static issues though depending on how dry the environment is. I don’t think I’ve ever been shocked when removing my laptop from a case… now my car… that’s another story! ;o) I get shocked everyday.
Jez McKean:
These particular sleeves are open ended. electricbaby does sell other styles of laptop covers that do close.
I’d like to second the suggestion about long term reviews. Sorta like a Gadgeteer “Consumer Reports”.
I have a small iBook that fits into an unpadded travel bag. The sleeve looks like it would give great protection without taking up space.
SITE SUGGESTION: The Gadgeteer banner on top needs a little color. You have very colorful pictures and reviews, but the banner in various shades of gray is pretty blah. Perhaps blues or greens; similar to LED lights that attract gadgeteers like moths around the yard light.
William Kuch:
I’ve been hearing the long term review idea for awhile now from various people. The problem is that 9 times out of 10, I will review a product and then promptly stow it in one of my gadget drawers until some point where I gather a bunch of things to take to work to give away. So the revisit-reviews would not be very often. What would work best, an addendum to the original review and then a mention in my gear diary that the review has been updated? Or no mention at all? What do you guys think?
BJ Swanson:
I agree that we need to have a new banner and maybe even a new color scheme. I’ve been considering an update for several months now and will move that up on my list of things I want done soon :o)
Judy,
I have been visiting your site since before you even had graphics on the page at all.
1 It is time for a site refresh.
2 Offer full RSS feeds. All the big gadgets already do. You won’t notice less traffic you will get more, because more people like myself will share your links via our feed readers. I don’t subscribe to your feed because it is only partial, and I have too many other feeds that are full that are more convenient. I love your site though and visit once or twice a week to check out what is happening.
You should also provided feeds for your comments, I think that will get even more people commenting.
I like the sleeves but I think they should also add some space / pockets for the power unit and a couple of accessories. i would also add over the shoulder straps. I know it is almost a bag.
As for the website, i tend to agree with some of the folks who wrote, podcast and even videocast to see the products in action would help make a better case for some of the products. Some of the usefullness or of the product at times can’t be appreciated in the pictures.
Long term review is also a must. similarly to some car reviews which try the car over extended periods to see how they truly hold up.
RS
I have no idea why my response is obnoxiously large. Sorry everyone.
Someone should suggest that we add editing features to the comment section ;o)
The website could be improved by creating a legacy category for products older than 3 years. We come looking for reviews of new products! Also, create a precise search engine for locating articles.
Okay, call me a curmudgeon and throw me out of the Gadget Club! Please DON’T do videos, podcasts or long term reviews. The price of these extras will be MORE ads and a review page where it will be hard to find the review in the menagerie of ads, like coolest-gadgets.com, Grrrr…. I don’t have the patience to have a video ad forced upon me before the review. I cringe at being forced to listen to an ad before a podcast review. Please spare me from this tyrannical evil! Julie has great in-depth reviews that I’ve found very helpful. I don’t keep gadgets long enough to worry about long term reviews because there is always something new and better coming out. Keep up the good work.
Hi Julie,
The designs are nice but it looks very thin.
Maybe they would come up with “Laptop Socks”, using iPod Socks material.
For the website, I think that you should allow us to post comments in your reviews (the ones found at the bottom of the home page), just as easily as we can in your Gear Diary like what I’m doing now.
It is quite a lot of work to post in your reviews because it uses a “forum” and we need to log in to the forum to post comments and log in using our “Gadgeteer” nicknames if we want to post in your Gear Diary.
The two of them should be “integrated” in that sense.
Gerald
The winners are: Tyler Puckett, William Kuch, BJ Swanson, Chris McElwee.
If you are you one of the winners, email me with your mailing address. :o)