So there are three weird ways to baby your laptop into a Marvel Avengers quality-of-defense for your laptop in a bag. Knowing how to protect your laptop in your backpack or bag is crucial to a long computer life. I assume you’re using a laptop bag of some kind already. If you’re trying to protect your laptop in a standard 5th grade Powerpuff girls backpack this post is not for you. I recommend that you check out the Socko Brinch Laptop I reviewed and come back to this if that describes your current situation.
Table of Contents
1. Use The Clothes Your Grandma Bought You.
2. Oversized Problems call for Oversized Protection
3. Protection Smells Great
?. The Ultimate Protective Measure
1. Use The Clothes Your Grandma Bought You.
This is a crude strategy to keep your laptop safe inside your backpack. Crude, but effective. If you got a new set of pajamas from Grammy every Christmas as I did, you’ll have the perfect material. Don’t use this method of you have your laptop turned on and on sleep mode. You can smother the poor hunk of circuits and overheat the thing.
You could throw in an ugly Christmas sweater in the computer pocket of your bag. Wrap the sweater around it a few times and your bag will get a blessing as real as Saint Nick himself. As long as you don’t drop the bag from a top-of-tree height on your North Pole trip, you’ll be protected.
2. Oversized Problems call for Oversized Protection
No, this isn’t a wrap it up in a magnum condom option. If you don’t like the idea of using clothes then there’s another option. Get yourself an oversized laptop sleeve. I assume you have a 15.6-inch laptop or smaller you want to protect on the go. Buy a cheap 17-inch sleeve for your computer. Use the extra slack created to wrap the laptop on one side. The extra cushion on one side help keeps it locked in place and gives extra protection to and accidental drops.
Tip: Wrap the loose end of the laptop sleeve around the hinges of your laptop. The main spine of the laptop is the soft-spot of every laptop. Protect it with your life, no compromise, like pouring milk into a bowl after the cereal is in place.
3. Protection Smells Great
Have you heard of scented sachets or pouches? I didn’t either until I met my girlfriend. If you don’t want to look homeless with the free “old clothes” method or like an idiot who couldn’t figure out the right sized laptop sleeve you are in luck! This method is a perfect smokescreen to mask our cautionary behavior.
Find a scent you like and make sure you buy two or three of them. Get the bigger ones to add more cushion in the backpack to place on both sides of your laptop. Place one on the spine of your laptop to the pavement and accidental impact hurting the hinge area at all. This will be the least protected setup for your laptop but the most aromatic one of the three. I suggest you learn what scent is your favorite because three bags of this stuff in one bag will bring an explosion of lavender that could smoke out a classroom if you aren’t careful. It can also be the perfect extra talking point your crush could comment on to keep the hope alive that you still have a shot. That last sentence was more for me than you.
The Ultimate Protective Measure
I am an American. I grew up in a very capitalist society. If I have a problem, I assume I can pay someone or buy something to fix it. Protecting a laptop is no different.
My lacking-in-style Mother taught me to believe that the higher the price, the better the product. This is not always the case, or the bag if you will. Everything I buy has to prove itself in some way that its worth at least half of the sticker price. So I looked for a nerdy test of laptop backpack protection grit. Computer World did just that with their drop test experiment with seven bags.
The best performing laptop bag is the Booq Bag Cobra Squeeze. I don’t love the fact that their business name is a misspelling. I’m not sure why you would call a protective backpack after a snake. Their marketing team could use some help, but their engineers made up for it slightly. The Booq Bag did perform the best at softening the blow of each drop at varying heights.
Now you know how to protect your laptop in a backpack. There are options for all budgets here including the budget of “just buy a better backpack”. You can learn more about the Booq Bag laptop bag here.