The perfect laptop backpack: Booq Cobra Squeeze vs. WaterField Designs Staad

I've been looking for a new, slim, stylish, minimalist, professional-looking laptop backpack that can store a bit more than the Solo Universal Slim - not least because a Dell XPS 13 is slightly longer than a Macbook Air 11" and won't fit.

After an exhaustive search (see the full list of all 33 bags), I narrowed it down to two:

1. Booq Cobra Squeeze ($195, but they often have 20% off codes around US holidays)
2. WaterField Designs' Staad ($319-$329)

Neither bag is cheap, and both are a bit heavier than I wanted. But both companies offer 30 day, full refund policies as long as the bags are unused; allowing you to see them in the flesh.

My standard test contents in the below consisted of:

• MacBook Air 11"
• iPad Mini
• MacBook charger (with US plug)
• Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter
• Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter
• MicroUSB cable
• Small travel umbrella
• Small bottle
• Small lunchbox
• Snack

• 

  Booq Cobra Squeeze: front view

• 

  Booq Cobra Squeeze: side view

• 

  Booq Cobra Squeeze: side pocket with trendy Github water bottle from JavaOne 2015

• 

  Booq Cobra Squeeze: side pocket with umbrella

• 

  Booq Cobra Squeeze: everything from the contents list above inside

• 

  WaterField's Staad: Two models - Stout on the left, Slim on the right

• 

  WaterField's Staad: Two models - Stout on the left, Slim on the right

• 

  WaterField's Staad Slim: side view when full with the contents above

• 

  WaterField's Staad Slim: everything from the contents list above inside

• 

  WaterField's Staad Stout: side view when full with the contents above

• 

  WaterField's Staad Stout: everything from the contents list above inside

• 

  WaterField's Staad: the addition of some elastic to the straps makes it look even better

Booq Cobra Squeeze

My first impressions were that it's a nice bag, but it wasn't as slim as I was expecting. The curved style was good at providing structure, but also meant it was always the same thickness, regardless of what was in it. The laptop compartment was a little large for the svelte Macbook Air, but the addition of a small elastic corner strap and good padding meant it didn't seem to be a significant problem. The internal organisation was decent and, as you can see in the photos above, you could squeeze in a large water container in a side pocket, if you were happy to leave the flap open. Personally, I also found the grey a little light in colour: a darker grey would look more professional, while still providing a bit of variety over the standard black seen everywhere. YMMV.

Unfortunately, the combination of the depth, and the straps didn't quite lie properly at the top of my shoulders, meant it had to go back. Booq were brilliant about it: 2-day USPS shipping of the bag cost me another $8, but the money was refunded to my credit card straight away; with no hassles.

WaterField Designs' Staad

Everyone who's a customer of WaterField Designs sings their praises, and their Staad backpack seemed to fit the bill. It comes in two variants, Slim and Stout. Most reviews on the Internet are about the Stout, and they're mostly positive (with Carryology's Drive By an alternative take). ZDNet and Jim Kubicek provide useful hands ons with the Slim model.

I ordered the Slim and it did fit my test packing in that the Cobra Squeeze did. Just. So I ordered the Stout as well to see if that'd be a better fit.

After much consideration, I've decided to keep the Slim: it looks more professional, and holds what I need it to on a daily basis. It's also possible to squeeze in a bit more than you expect, but its slimness, and the lack of the extra width, make it the overall winner for me. As with Booq, there were no problems with returns: WaterField Designs refunded the money for the Stout immediately upon receipt (this time, 2-day USPS shipping cost $11.15).

We've also added some elastic around the straps to keep the spare, dangling, lengths tidy; this makes it look even smarter - and perhaps something WaterField could consider adding as standard in future.

Timbuk2 Classic Messenger: how much can it hold?

As with wallets, I'm always on the look out for a good, small, lightweight bag. Day-to-day, I use a Solo Universal Sling which perfectly fits a MacBook Air 11", iPad Mini, some business cards, pens and - when needed - the laptop charger:

The bag's definitely small (a few extra millimeters of length on the MacBook and it wouldn't fit) and weighs only 380g. No extraneous weight: very happy. It looks alright but isn't perhaps as professional as I'd like, and a sleak/small backback would look better and be better to carry for longer periods. But, as a commuting bag for day-to-day travel, it's fine.

However, sometimes I have to take overnight flights. Usually I try to travel with just a small carry on roller suitcase and my laptop bag, but when big suitcases are in the hold or I want to be able to quickly stash/access a hoody or sweater, a larger travel bag is useful. After some Googling, I decided on a Timbuk2 Classic Messenger Bag (medium). This isn't a full review, there are plenty of those on the Internet, but I had real difficulty trying to find out how much it could store. The answer is "plenty":

Certainly the medium size would be far too big for a day-to-day laptop bag for an 11" MacBook Air; but for convenience in having only a single bag on a plane (change of clothes, some toiletries, laptop etc.) whilst also having it be smart enough to use as a laptop bag on its own when I arrive, it seems to be just about spot on. It's also not too heavy at 880g.

JavaOne 2013 - Starting the Future

JavaOne is a brand which is recognised by Java developers the world over. Held in San Francisco, it may have suffered slightly since Oracle bought Sun (and it got relegated to be the smaller, sibling, conference of Oracle OpenWorld), but it still has an excellent vibe, great sessions and fascinating exhibitors.

Sunday's technical keynote covered Java's prevalence and how Java - and Java developers - power the Internet of Things. This thread carried through the various speakers, with a chess-playing robot powered by a Raspberry Pi and, of course, Java.

Today, the sessions kicked off in earnest, with Gil Tene's 08:30 talk on How NOT to Measure Latency providing some interesting techniques for measuring and demonstrating performance throughput. The tools, hdrHistogram and jHiccup are definitely worth a look.

Avoiding jet lag using continuous clock change

These days I'm often travelling long distances; whether it's to Asia or Detroit with work; or San Francisco for the MeeGo and JavaOne Conferences.

Ten hour flights are rarely fun; but when combined with a ten hour time difference? The jet lag can destroy you.

However, I trust a clock when I see it. So if I can convince myself that the time isn't changing in one big jump, jet lag is less of an issue. I used to do this with my watch: every two hours on a ten hour flight with an eight hour time difference: move my watch forward two hours. By speeding up, or slowing down time, I find it excellent for transitioning gradually to my destination timezone.

My N9's standby screen provides an opportunity to do this automatically: every time I glance at my phone on the flight, it could show me the right "transient" time.

I prototyped it with a spreadsheet (download), for a recent trip to Korea, to see how effective it would be before writing an app:

 

To try it out, first off, enter the local departure and arrival times; and the timezone difference:

If travelling eastwards, the time difference will be positive. If travelling westwards, it will be negative.

A shell script will then be shown in column E. Copy this column and paste it into a text editor. Copy the resulting script to your UNIX-based mobile device (N9, N950, N900, N8x0, jailbroken iPad).

On a Harmattan device, the script needs to be run in develsh:

~ $ develsh outbound.sh
...

On everything else it needs to be run as root:

Jaffas-iPad:~ mobile$ su -
Password:
Jaffas-Ipad:~ root# sh outbound.sh
...

If run with screen or nohup, you shouldn't even need to keep the terminal open.

NEXT STEPS

Obviously the next step is an app. Is it something you'd be interested in? Is there a nice Qt API for changing the time? Are there Qt APIs for looking up timezones, and setting the device's timezone?

Thanks to eipi for allowing me to use MaeFlight's icon in this post. Also published on Nokia Developer blogs