Friday, 3 December 2010

Travel Bag - bag, case


I confess that if Amazon had not offered this bag as a "bundle" with my Bose soun dock, it would have never occurred to me to buy one. As with anything you keep on a tabletop, the sound dock collects dust and keeping it protected eliminates that. Eventually the dust will collect in the grid and surely damage it. The bag is great, sturdy, elegant, and it even has a pocket for the socket attachment. You can store your sound dock anywhere and just pick up the bag and carry it with you (the shoulder strap is an added bonus). I supposed eventually I would have bought a bag to keep the dock from getting scratched or damaged; it didn't have to be a Bose bag, but it's simply ELEGANT. Bose® Travel Bag for the SoundDock® Portable Digital Music System (Black)

This is obviously made to fit the Bose Sounddock Portable like a glove. It even has a perfect sized compartment for the charger and a little extra room on top of the speaker to put remote, iPod, Belkin Mini Surge Protector (great portable surge protector) and an extra battery if you buy one.



Nice quality (think a step above the CaseLogic leatherish CD cases).

Look, it's expensive for a bag, I know. But you probably just spent $400 on your portable Bose for the purpose of TRANSPORTING it places, so you'll need it.



It's really slickly designed, everything fits just perfect. And it looks nice. I've brought with me to the park, and it makes a perfect carryon for the airplane.



Highly recommended.

This will be long but it can raise bag to a 5-star.



Two major flaws:

1. The center side pocket under the flap is not large enough to hold the spare battery (ref'd in previous comments). It begs the question: Did the bag undergo any Quality Control?



2. The flap closure which uses two small magnets to hold closed is a joke! What QC testing did they do? Keep in mind that the bag will be holding north of $1K in valuables(iPod $400, speakers $400, battery, cables, etc.). I wouldn't trust this bag to securely hold my iPod as I learn through testing (see below).



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Resolution to flaw #1(battery doesn't fit in pocket):



With the flap open, view the 3 pockets on the front. Let's call them (from left to right) pockets #1, #2, and #3.



Pocket #1 is slender and is well sized for the remote.



Pocket #2 (the largest) is obviously intended for the battery but is short by 1/2 inch in width!



Pocket #3 fits the iPod (iPod-Touch in my case) and fits fine though is a bit loose.



I'm hoping a lightbulb is going off in your head... #2 is not wide enough while #3 is a bit too wide.



So that's how I fixed (kludged) the battery issue. Notice the seam between pockets #2 and #3. The sewing is right down the middle centered between pockets #2 and #3. I carefully cut the thread from that seam and then manually sewed it back. But I sewed it approx 3/4 inch closer to pocket #3 rather then right down the middle between both pockets. Voila! Battery now fits snugly into #2 and the iPod is now a bit snugger in #3. (Picture available upon request).



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Resolution of flaw #2: Flap closure.



Its obvious as mentioned in previous users comment(s) that the flap needs a full double-pull zipper rather than two wimpy magnets in the corners. So in the mean time, try this: Get a Velstrap (2in X 36in).

[...]



At first, I strapped it vertically and was quite pleased that the strap would be held centered by the single small loop at top of bag. However, after loading up bag (speakers, power supply, remote, spare battery, iPod, etc.) I gave it the upside down shake test (QC?) and...

BANG!... My iPod was laying on the counter! It had slipped by the flap since the flap was only being supported by strap in the middle of the bag and the iPod was on the right side (pocket #3). The magnets were useless.



Solution... (though it doesn't look nearly as pretty).. is to orient the strap horizontally across the bag. It now holds the flap firmly closed and passes the shake test. If you're a fanatic about your $1K cargo, the Velstrap comes with two per package so you could always run one strap in both directions. But I'm going with the single horizontal strap. That's all that I could get my wife to part with!



The Bose bag I would now consider 5-star. Hopefully Bose get's their QC department involved even though this item has nothing to do with their specialty... SOUND. But hey, that IS their logo on the bag!



Tom



P.S. I totally agree with comments regarding the power supply prongs needing a home but I simply store in same bag with cables.

First of all, the fit/quality/materials are excellent and the fit of the SoundDock itself is perfect. If you have a portable SoundDock, then you really need to buy this case. But there are a number of design problems that would have been so easy to fix: 1) charger "holster" - as others pointed out, you must detach the prongs before it will fit and there's no good place to put the prongs where they will be safe and not subject to loss. Also, the holster is a very tight fit for my charger - I can't close the velcro w/o damaging the strain relief on the plug. Either they have recently redesigned the charger, or I have a quality control problem. 2) outside flap - the magnetic closure is neat, but I would prefer something more secure, especially since the interior pockets do not have flaps - it would be easy for the flap to open and the remote to fall out (or your iPod!). I also think they missed the opportunity to put a zipper on the flap to store documentation for the SoundDock.

I would still buy it again because of the fit and I can put all the accessories, plus my Nano, video iPod, Pelican case, and earphones all inside and the overall size is still fairly small. - Case - Bose - Portable - Bag'


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