messenger bag

Anyone familiar with the Large Manhattan Portage Dj Messenger Bag It seems to be fairly new to the company because I can't find any reviews of it. I'm looking to fit atleast 2 school books into the bag along with my hel80 notebook computer and a few spiral notebooks. I like the vintage look. Just a wonderin'. I think I'm pretty much buying it tonight no matter what but I would like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks.

jonFREY

p.s how about any bags made buy Manhattan Portage? Hows the build quality, can you remove the large logo on the front of their products?

 

Can't really address the Manhattan Portage back... but you might want to consider the Kensington Contour Terrain messenger bag, it's considerably cheaper and I've heard good things about it and its spaciousness.

What size notebook do you have? The Contour Terrain is designed for 15.4" while the Manhattan Portage seems to geared towards 17"

 

are you sure you want to carry a messenger bag with that much weight in it? From my experience messenger bags play havoc on the shoulder that it's strung over. I hope you don't have to do too much walking.

 

the manhattan portage bag is nice, simple, canvas, traditional messenger. yes you can remove the label, it would just be a matter of pulling the stitches off the label. They don't have much structure, though the laptop bag might.


There's also timbuk2, as i'm sure you're aware of, and a whole bunch of other bag makers. Also, you don't have to be bound by the laptop bag, you could always get a normal messenger and get a sleeve like the sumdex impactguard, or the timbuk2 quilted pad, something with enough padding to make up for it.


as to the shoulder problem, i have a Chrome metropolis that is coming this week and those have a nice thick shoulder pad so we'll see how it goes. Of course it won't distribute the wieght evenly like a backpack, but some people are willing to make the sacrifice for whatever reason.

 

My notebook is 15.4" with a 9 cell battery, I already bought a slipcase for it but it didn't fit due to the battery sticking out in the back 3/4". The messenger bag I am looking at says its fine for larger 15.4"-17" notebooks. I took a looksy at the contour, it looks very spacious. It seems to hold alot of gadgets. I'm just picky about looks and I seem to like the looks of the manhattan more. I just splurged 1600 on a laptop I think I can spend 70 more dollars I havn't bought the bag yet I'm still going to investigate other options. Thanks for the input.

jonFREY

 

if you go to the manhattan portage website, they also have a line of bag with limited print silk screen designs. I'm usually not a fan, but there's a nice skyline design i like http://www.manhattanportage.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=208

but with the large panel on the front, if you're the type or know someone... you could always get something you want custom printed onto there that would look really nice.

 

I attempt to screen print shirts once in awhile so my plan was to possibly screen print onto the front of the bag or atleast maybe screen print on to some fabric and then sew it onto the bag. I would hate to screen print onto the bag to find that it just bleeds all over the place. Messenger bags are usually made to wear while riding a bike (which I do alot), the bag I'm interested in looks like it will be in the way of peddaling, the website says it is a "shoulder bag". I think this bag will be put off to the side for now.

Ok so they also have this bag http://www.ebags.com/manhattan_portage/new_york_messenger_bag_large/product_detail/index.cfm?modelID=16898 I guess the only down side to this one is that it only has one large compartment inside. Which means losing things. It has no laptop sleeve but as you said before I can just buy one. It looks like this one will be better off for riding a bike. Thanks for listening to my rampage in this wonderful bag journey of mine.

The search continues.

jonFREY

 

When looking for sleeves, you may also want to take a look at the Tom Bihn laptop sleeves. They've got hard sides and come in both vertical (backpack) and horizontal (messenger bag) protective formats--look for the names "Brain cell" and "Monolith" on their product page. They are possibly a bit pricey and utilitarian in looks, but they seem to be very well made and protective of your notebook computer.

 

Although i currently do not use one, I second all tom bihn recommendations. They make quality products that are well thought out and well made.