This is the Men’s version of the Mobile Edge ScanFast backpack, $99.00 which is constructed of 1680 denier ballistic nylon. Mobile Edge is one of several companies now producing airport-security friendly travel bags which now permit you to keep your laptop computer in the bag during the TSA screening process. Click Here to read my review.
Here’s the bottom front pocket. One thing I really like about this bag is that the pockets are really well-designed and you can shove a ton of stuff into them. Here I have my teas and Diet Snapple packets along with my GPS, digital camera and charging cords and meds/dietary supplements stowed away. The bottom pocket is big enough to hold a full-sized magazine or hardcover book with lots of room to spare, it’s where I shove most of my important gadgets. The interior has a fishnet zippered lining for stowing away small objects that might otherwise get loose or would be difficult to dig around and find.
The Front Center pocket has about half of the storage space of the Front Bottom conpartment. This has a ton of room for several cellphones/smartphones, ipods, smaller chargers, a thick wallet and several other items.
The top central pocket is deceptive because it is much, much bigger than it looks. The top area has a small zippered compartment for business cards and snacks, but if you reach into the front section, you’ll notice it extends all the way to the bottom of the backpack. While this is convenient for shoving all kinds of large items in here, it’s hard to find stuff once you’ve placed them in this pocket.
The ScanFast’s main central compartment is considerable in size as it runs the entire length of the backpack, so you can store large items in it, such as several hardcover books, folders, notebooks, larger electronics items (Kindles, larger brick-style chargers, cord bundles, etc.) Like the front compartments it also has netted zippered sections for stowing items that might get jostled around.
Here’s the whole reason for buying this backpack design — the TSA approved laptop compartment. As you can see, you can fold it out in a “butterfly” fashion separate from the rest of the backpack, which can have its other compartments closed and zipped up while your bag goes through the scanner. The laptop is secured in a pouch with a Velcro strap, so it won’t fall out during the scanning process. However, other than magazines and a few papers underneath I wouldn’t store anything else in this section.
Here is the part of the laptop compartment that butterflies opposite of the laptop pouch. As you can see here, this section is completely flush and has no way to store anything else against this. I’d like to see Mobile Edge add a large zippered pouch area or perhaps two zippered pouches where other items can be stored, as there is still a lot of room left in here when this compartment is closed. I found myself able to shove baseball caps and a spare change of clothing as well as sandwiches and other stuff here when dragging the pack around during the week.
The ScanFast backpack also has a convenient zipper compartment on the side with an expandable netting where you can store a large water bottle or other beverage.
