Sunday, October 17, 2010

Zen Class Bag Review

Sophisticated travelers know that one of the best things you can do is to be prepared for delays and that a plane trip can be optimized for productivity.

I travel with a lot of stuff. A laptop, a phone, sometimes an iPad, maybe a book (for takeoff/landing), water bottle, healthy snacks, and more.

I frequently find myself reaching under the seat in front of me or trying to navigate the pouch in the back of the seat, so I was particularly excited when Brent Hollowell told me about his business, Zen Class Travel and the tote bag that is designed to fit right over the tray table in front of you.

On a flight to Seattle, I gave it a whirl and hung it up in front of me for a large portion of the trip.

Here’s my video of the experience.

It certainly made access a LOT easier and more pleasurable. I had more within reach and simply than before.

The bag folds up nicely and has a shoulder strap, so you can easily prep it beforehand and then just put it up when you get on board. I chose not to do this.

When bringing the tray table down, however, the bag can’t stay on it. Since I use my laptop a lot on the flight, I found that the bag was on the floor next to me (I had a window seat, so for this flight, it wasn’t a big deal).

While there were a lot of pockets and they could hold my laptop (NetBook) and my iPad, the bag couldn’t fold up in half (for the carrying portion) with those devices in there.

A minor point, but I noticed it.

I happen to love pockets, and this thing had a lot of them. With a bit more practice, I could probably become quite adept at it.

I can’t say that it revolutionized my travel experience, but I can say that I liked the convenience of it, the design was clever, and it certainly made for a more pleasant flight.

I’m intrigued enough that I will continue to test it out on my next set of flights (we’ll see how it holds up going to India!)

Disclosure: Brent sent me a free bag for purposes of trial, but with no conditions attached regarding the review.

blog comments powered by Disqus