Sorry for the flashback to “Abbey Road” with The Beatles in 1969 but the title seems appropriate. Today we will take a look at info concerning carrying your notebook.
Also, as an aside here – one of my pet peeves regards notebooks vs. laptops. Many people refer to a “notebook” as a “laptop”. Laptops were the predecessors to notebooks. The laptop had a huge battery built in and weighed a lot more than any notebook. As the name implies a laptop fills your lap. One site defines them this way, “A laptop usually weighs between 4 to12 pounds. A Notebook weighs less than 5 pounds and is less than two inches thick.” There are other differences too but notebooks were made to replace something about the size of a paper notebook.
Now that I got that off my chest on to the main topic: computer bags. If you have a notebook you may often take it with you. That, as stated above is one of the purposes of the “notebook” computer – small enough to easily carry with you.
What types of bags are there? What are the costs? What sizes do they make? The answers to those questions are about unlimited. There are very inexpensive ones for $10 made out of plastic…mainly for younger children for a few papers, a small book or two, lunch, etc. There are large leather and nylon ones for hundreds of dollars with amazing numbers of pockets. They may have spaces for water bottles, cables of various sorts, phones, emergency chargers, solar charges and more.
One thing that concerns me is the weight factor. There are reports of people, young and old, doing damage to their muscles and even spinal columns. They carry bags that are too full of “stuff” and they should lighten their load.
There is a limit that has been advised for quite some time. That limit is 10 to 15% of the person’s body weight. For people under 14 or 15 years of age, the amount should be closer to the 10 percent limit. For instance, if you have a child in elementary school that weighs in at 50 pounds the backpack weight when full should be about five pounds. So if your child carries a backpack you should really check it out as five pounds is not that much to you. You really do not want them to have back issues temporarily or for the rest of their lives due to a heavy load.
I have two main bags for my computers, both were gifted to me, one recently and one over 15 years ago. The newer one is a “no name” goat leather briefcase type and will hold a very large notebook with room for many extras. The other is a Targus nylon bag with two shoulder straps which when new was quite expensive. However, Targus bags have a lifetime guarantee. If anything breaks or wears out they will replace it for free. I have replaced mine once and it is ready for another replacement (the reason for me writing this).
I checked both of mine and the heaviest fully loaded is around 18 pounds. I weigh about 200 pounds so that is good as 30 pounds, my limit, would bother me.
One final word of warning from the doctors who deal with back pain. Make sure you use both straps one for each shoulder to keep the injuries down.
