Incase Travel Kit Plus for iPad Review

As you know, I have a problem with cases and covers for gadgets – I can’t get enough of them.  My husband, Butch, is a beneficiary (or is that victim?) of my case addiction.  I’m always looking for the perfect case for his gadgets, too.  Butch has an iPad that he uses at work for keeping his schedule, taking meeting notes, keeping to-do lists, storing reference materials in PDFs, and the like.  The virtual keyboard works fine for most of the things he does, but sometimes he could really use a Bluetooth keyboard for taking notes.  After he bought a keyboard, he found he needed a bigger case to hold it, the iPad, and a stand.  I found the Incase Travel Kit Plus for iPad while surfing for items to write news posts and thought it seemed perfect for the job.  I ordered one for Butch, loaded it up with his things, and told him to give it a try.

Most of the images in this review can be clicked for enlargements.

The Incase Travel Kit Plus is made of a heavy, black nylon fabric.  It looks like the material used in soft-sided luggage.  The outside walls of the bag are padded.  The bag is 8”W X 11.5”H X 3.75”D (fully loaded).  There are no pockets or pouches on the exterior of the bag.  There’s a piece of soft belting material sewn flat along the spine with enough “slack” that you can slide your fingers under and use it as a handle.  There’s also a 1.25” loop of belting sewn at the top of the flat handle.  I imagine you could attach a carabiner to it to hang a small pouch from the bag.

The front of the bag has a rubbery badge with the Incase name and leaf logo.  The back of the bag has a small fabric tab with the leaf logo sewn into the seam at the spine.  All three zipper pulls are made of rubbery black plastic and display the leaf logo on both sides.

The Incase Travel Kit Plus comes with a black plastic stand for the iPad.  It can hold the iPad in landscape and portrait mode, but it seems a bit more stable in landscape.  There are holders at each end designed to hold the iPad at different angles.  The bottom of the stand has a built-in cord wrap for your iPad charging cable.  The stand is designed to hold a naked iPad, but I found you could squeeze in the iPad in the Belkin Grip Vue cover.  It was tricky taking the iPad back out; the edges of the Belkin were pulled back a bit as you extracted the iPad.  Since Butch already had a GroovyStand that he likes, he decided to replace the Incase stand with the GroovyStand.

There are two zipper compartments.  The front compartment has a double zipper, and it opens up completely flat.  Inside, you’ll find a variety of zipper pockets and a large pouch with a Velcro closure.  The large pouch has some padding, and it is the perfect size to hold the Apple Bluetooth keyboard.  It will fit in with keys up or down, but we pack it with the keys down to protect the keys from being pressed on by things stored in the other side.  The spine has two pieces of elastic that are intended to corral cords and cables, and it is perfect for holding Butch’s Charge4All charging tube.  The other side has a big, full-sized zipper pocket in the back.  There are two mesh zipper pockets at the bottom of the big pocket.  One mesh pocket holds the power supply for the Charge4All.  The other mesh pocket holds all the charging cables for the Charge4All.  The big zipper pocket has room for the GroovyStand and for the iPad’s charging cable and small power brick.  The mesh pockets are pretty full, but there is a little extra room in the big zipper pocket.  You could even fit some things in with the keyboard in the Velcro pocket, but I wouldn’t want to put anything too heavy on the keyboard. 

The back compartment of the Travel Kit Plus bag is for the iPad.  The padding in the exterior wall is stiffer and denser than the padding in the front exterior wall.  The wall between the iPad pocket and the front storage compartments is also padded with the stiff, dense padding.  This pocket doesn’t unzip completely.  It unzips only across the top of the bag and about 2” down each side  so you can slip the iPad in and out easily.  The interior of the iPad pouch is a soft, low-pile fake fur material.  This pocket is just big enough to slide in the iPad in the Belkin Grip Vue case. 

This case is ideal for Butch’s daily use.  He has room for everything he needs for his work day and to carry along for meetings.  Butch really likes the soft, padded iPad compartment and feels that it’s very protective.  If it were my bag, I would like a long shoulder- or cross-body strap, but Butch would never use one.  He likes the flat belting handle, but he would prefer a sturdier strap with some padding to help it hold its shape – something a little more like a grab handle.  Butch highly recommends the Incase Travel Kit Plus for iPad.