Swaine Adeney Paternoster laptop bag review

Swaine Adeney Brigg Paternoster review

4/4/09
By Notebookreview.com member: Vogelbung

"As English as the Eton Collar, as iconic as the Bowler Hat. We are Swaine Adeney Brigg of No. 54 St James’s Street, London SW1A."

Those are the leading words on their website intro, and they're not far from the truth. Swaine Adeney Brigg have been in business for 250 years and are synonymous with classic British-made luggage and accessories in leather. They have, among other things, also been immortalised in popular fiction as the bagmaker to James Bond.

The Paternoster is a relatively new introduction which breaks tradition to offer something which is distinctly 21st century - a laptop storage area - but does not break from the look of document cases which Swaine Adeney have been producing for many years.




Specifications:

Width: 17". Height: 12.5". Maximum regular depth: 5.75" at bottom of case, 4" at top of case.
Unstretched laptop compartment size: 14" x 10 x 1.5". Will stretch to accommodate ~2" thickness.
Weight: 2.7Kg/5.95lbs without shoulder strap. Shoulder strap: 300g/0.66lbs.

Materials

• Metal fixtures: Brass
• Leather: English Bridle Leather - basically a very even but very tough leather.
• Internal laptop compartment: sueded pigskin

Options

• Owner Initials
• Leather colours - Dark London Tan, Chestnut, Black, Havana. Colour chosen for this example is London Tan

Externals



The first thing that strikes the reviewer on extracting the bag from the protective velour bag it ships in is exactly what should be the focal point of the bag: The leather. Uniform, extremely thick and accurately yet clearly hand-stitched, it exudes quality from first glance.



Ever wondered why many leather messenger bags have front flaps which are sewn together out of two pieces? It's because they can't get average-quality leather to be visually acceptable in a piece that size. With the Paternoster such compromises are not evident - the 'flap' is a single piece of beautifully finished leather, approximately 19" x 17".

Not only are the materials top-notch, but also the standard of construction is very high - from the reinforced gussets down to the multi-piece handle. All of the stiching is done by hand and uses linen thread instead of nylon. All of the hardware on the bag is cast brass, which is hand-polished to a high shine before reaching you. The maximum strap length is 43" measured mounting point to mounting point, and it is adjustable with a belt-and-buckle arrangement. Personally I wished that there was a way of making it longer as I like my shoulder-strapped bags to hang low, and also that the strap was a little wider to distribute the load better when carrying larger/heavier notebooks.



The rear of the bag features an open slip pocket with an integrated trolley mount - unzipping the bottom allows you to thread a trolley handle through to the top.



In terms of the externals of the bag there's little to fault: Classic English style through and through, executed with traditional craftsmanship from top-quality materials. To aid in keeping the bag looking good, Swaine Adeney provides a leather care kit with the bag: A pot of their 'feeding' compound and cloth.



A leather 'bell' for the two supplied keys (hardly high-security items, merely a mild deterrrent) is also among the shipped accessories.


Internals
The Paternoster provides three main compartments: The front compartment, the centre laptop compartment, and the rear compartment. All the finest leather in the world wouldn't be any use if the bag didn't actually protect its contents. The Paternoster is designed so that the 'give' in the external gussets at the bottom absorbs any major impacts, while the foam lining of the laptop compartment mitigates the secondary effect of those impacts reaching the laptop itself. This does provide more protection that many flat-bottomed bags which rely on the internal foam alone to provide impact protection. As such, this bag is not only suited to people who want their laptops to survive daily portage, but also ideally suited for owners of more ultimately fragile machines such as anything from Apple. The internal compartment is beautifully silky suede, and abrasion damage is highly unlikely to be a factor with this material.



The only Swaine Adeney Brigg branding is discreetly on the back of the rear compartment.



Sizewise the bag accomodates most 15-inchers without any problems. 13-inch class machines will fit reasonably snugly as well as pictured below.



While the 17-inch Macbook Pro - the thinnest 17-incher generally available - can be accomodated as shown it is a very tight fit, and the compression of the side foam pads will compromise the impact protection.



An <11-inch-class netbook / ultraportable can be fitted vertically, allowing storage for other equipment.



As far as non-laptop specific features are concerned, there are some issues. As can be seen the two pockets inside the bag are frankly inadequate for storage of all but the most limited items. The smaller pocket is only really designed to accept business cards and suchlike, while the larger pocket can barely accomodate an iPhone - one of the thinner phones. Handsets such as an N96 have no hope of fitting. the two pen storage slots are also inadequate in that they only cater for a very narrow range of grip sizes.



Apart from that, there is plenty of space, especially with the expanding gussets, for storage of other items - it's just that there are no specific provisions for compartmentalisation of that space. A 'baglet' for storage of AC adapters, etc would be a good idea here but Swaine Adeney do not sell anything off the shelf which would accomodate such items.


Conclusion:
The Paternoster is a top quality case in the classic English-style document case mould, which competently implements a modern twist in the form of laptop portage. Swaine Adeney could do a little more R&D in terms of specific in-bag features for notebook users but on the whole, the bag successfully fulfils its primary duty and is definitely an investment over and above more disposable leather cases - and will in all probability last the owner through many generations of notebooks.


Pros:

• Classic design that won’t date easily, because it’s already fully dated :D
• In conjunction with the substantial leather and padding, offers above-average protection for the notebook inside
• Top-notch leather which will age better with proper care than cheaper leather cases
• Excellent build quality as you would expect

Cons:

• Apart from the laptop compartment, rather sparse supplementary storage provision for laptop-wielding users
• As a substantially built bag, definitely more taxing on the shoulder than lightly built messenger bags.
• Shoulder strap could be wider
• Pen holders not wide enough for many fat-gripped pens

Pricing and availability:
The Paternoster can be purchased from Swaine Adeney Brigg’s website: http://www.swaineadeney.co.uk/products/pate_dc/
Current price (updated as of April 2010) is £1225.00 (around $1500 excluding UK sales tax)

 

Wow! A bag that costs more than my computer.

John

 

Remember when you mentioned I should post a review of the G11 John, and I might have mentioned it was too much work? I finally got around to posting a review

 

As such, this bag is not only suited to people who want their laptops to survive daily portage, but also ideally suited for owners of more ultimately fragile machines such as anything from Apple.

LOL i agree

 

To be honest, I don't recall that. This bag would hold several G11's.

Anyway, thanks for the review.

John

 

It's a nice looking bag....Glad they supplied the balm and cloth for cleaning!

It reminds me of this Attorney I see daily, he carries one very similar, but it's his briefcase, very..vintage and old school! Cool!


Cin

 

I now fully realise, given the demographics, that there are very good reasons why this review hasn't got much in the way of feedback on this forum - apart from the non-contemporary style, the sticker shock is probably also a factor for most - but this review also happens to be, as far as I'm aware, the only one of the bag on the Internet. So I'm rounding it off with a longer-term owner's notes for a complete review.

EDIT Notes updated a year on:

The bag has been on regular commutes, and also regularly as cabin baggage, and almost all of the time I'm using it as a shoulder bag with the supplied straps. No particular care has been taken of it beyond the three-monthly 'feeding' as recommended, with the bag readily used as a battering ram on commuter trains, stuffed in overhead aircraft compartments / slid under seats, etc and plunked down wherever.

Build
First of all, nothing has fallen off or become damaged. However, the almost 100% use of the shoulder straps means that the area of the top flap that is in contact with the shoulder strap when I'm carrying it has become compressed as you can see.



The above picture was taken in July 2009, and as of April 2010 it's ever so slightly worse - but it hasn't progressed at the same pace as the first couple of months. The leather still has a long way to go before it starts to threaten to delaminate.

Cosmetics
The SAB logo on the inside - basically just a square piece of leather which has been glued on - is still handing on as of April 2010, as the edges of the piece used to catch on things I was putting into the back compartment. The logo on the inside always looked like an afterthought, as though Swaine Adeney Brigg were almost apologetic about being so crass as to having to label their stuff - so actually, no great loss if this ends up peeling away completely.

The case has darkened a bit in general from the original colour, and this is expected to carry on resulting in a richer brown over time.

The extremely uniform, smooth and initially unmarked leather does show up the effects of wear, jabbing it with fingernails, etc fairly clearly - more so than typical printed leather which has plenty of embossed texture to hide such marks - but generally speaking the leather has stood up well, and part of the effects of the 'feeding' is to smooth down those marks slightly. As expected of bridle hide, high-wear areas such as on the bottom has also faired well, with no problems seen to date.

Potential deal-breakers
If there's one real issue I can point out with the bag, it's an unavoidable facet of it's materials and construction - the weight. I've recently (April 10) had a chance to weigh it precisely, and it's about 1.5Kgs/3lbs heavier than a lightweight messenger. It means that you are effectively already carrying two laptops the moment you pop a computer in there. And it is weight that you can feel at the end of a day if it's been on your shoulder all the time. As I said however, for a top-notch leather bag with this level of solidity of construction, the resulting weight is inevitable.

Protection Issues especially for Apple notebooks
I've also had occasion to drop this bag or be thumped into at speed several times, and the results have highlighted some issues with the protection afforded by the bag for the aforementioned fragile Apples. No other laptops have been damaged in the bag except Apples despite higher drops / case impacts, but it is worth pointing out some issues - which may be unavoidable, but issues nevertheless.

The main issue stems from the weight of the bag in conjunction with more fragile machines. For example, Macbook Air / Macbook Pros suffered functionally detrimental bending (unable to open laptop or 'scraping' of the lid against body due to bent lid around hinge area, or indeed bent body in the case of the Air) when the bag was dropped with the laptop inside, usually resulting in the bag falling on it's front.

What happened here is pretty simple - the combined weight of the bag, the contents and the laptop ended up being transferred to the bottom of the laptop when it was dropped. There is adequate padding in the bag for impacts, but the effective crush weight encountered here was outside of the scope of the foam to protect the fragile and bendy Apple notebooks. I have accidentally subjected the bag to higher drops in the same vein, and e.g. Sony SZ's, Z's, Dell D/E-series that I would have been carrying at the time - i.e. more robust machines actually designed for intensive mobile use - have escaped unscathed.

Conclusions drawn, design issues identified
While the standard of construction is excellent as befits a bag of this price and there are no major structural issues at this time, in use there are definitely some design issues to be overcome for a truly 'technologically friendly' bag with a classic face.

SAB should consider that making a bag laptop-friendly isn't just about putting a padded compartment in, and that accessory storage and even lifestyle changes over time (your average male 20th-century document bag carrier would likely have used the shoulder strap less, as fits a more formal dress code) affect the usage of their classically styled bags - and I think the area where the shoulder strap contacts the bag should be reinforced.

The 'baglet' that I mentioned in the original review would indeed come in very handy, and IMO, SAB should consider making a fitted accessory bag as an option, as well as redesigning the pointlessly small pockets on the front compartment to accommodate devices (phones, etc).

One other usability issue: The brass latch on the top flap - which is a substantial piece of metal, and may - if you are attempting to extract a laptop one-handed - hit the laptop along with the top flap springing back and mark it.

I've had this happen with a couple of my Apple notebooks, causing noticeable marks. I have also had it happen to a Sony SZ, but the results have been practically invisible. The issue can be overcome with a reversed latch (i.e. the top flap metal component only has a latch receptacle slot and no protruding parts), but it remains to be seen if SAB would undertake that change even if they realised the problem.

One other minor issue is the way the leather tab of the zip at the rear bottom of the bag, which opens the trolley handle slot, hangs on the ground.

When putting the bag down on train floors, etc - it's frankly unhygienic for something which someone is expected to grasp to hang down onto the floor. It would have been smarter to put a small piece of metal into the tab and sew in a magnet above or beside the zip behind the bag leather, so that the tab would stay stuck onto the bag until the zip needs to be operated.


Generally speaking however I'm still pretty happy with my purchase. And my opinion remains unchanged a year later. It's a handsome bag that accomplishes it's primary task - protected portage of a laptop - as expected. It is also immediately discernible to most as something of superior quality, purchased by someone whose taste goes beyond disposable fashion - without shouting about it. And that's just how I roll, baby

 

Wow... really nice bag