Lapstrap is a simple concept. Take a length of wide nylon “strap” (comfortably padded – with a nice inner rubber grippy surface), buckle the strap for form a big loop. Now sling the loop through your laptop and close it. What you have is a quick and easy way to carry your laptop without the hassle of opening and closing your laptop bag. What you don’t have is any of your laptop accessories like the charger or external drives. The makers of this device sent me one yesterday, and I’ve been trying it around the office. My initial impression: Great quality, nice inner grippy surface so the strap doesn’t slip from your shoulder, great for carrying a laptop within a school, convention, conference or office where you don’t have time to put it into and out of a bag.
Here’s the LapStrap as it looks when you remove it from the package.
The only assembly required is to adjust the plastic buckle to fit the width of your LapTop. Although I was initially hesitant that the buckle would hold — I was not able to make it lose its grip and it remained firmly in place without any fear that the strap might slip suddenly.
Setting up the strap is simple – open laptop, insert strap, close lid. My MacBook Pro doesn’t have the tightest closing lid – but it’s stayed closed as I’ve tested the Lapstrap.
Here’s a picture that gives you a feel for exactly how thin this makes your laptop. Instead of carrying a heavy bag around at a conference, you can hook the LapStrap to your laptop and have both hands free to gather up all the free stuff in the exhibition halls. Plus if you have a colleague take your picture with the laptop around your waist – the boss will be impressed and more apt to overlook those extra conference bar bills or room service charges.
Although the manufacturers web site promotes the LapStrap as an easy way to get through airport security, I think the real markets for this are:
- Conventions and conferences where people are in and out of rooms a lot
- Colleges and Universities
- Public Schools
- Corporations where people are lugging their laptops in and out of meetings
Because the LapStrap offers no protections against bumping or dropping – the usage is best for short periods where you’re going to be moving with your laptop from room to room. I know I HATE packing up my laptop bag every time I have to leave a meeting only to unpack it 5 minutes later in the next room.
A big market could be elementary schools where they increasingly make use laptops. At my kids’ school In order to retrieve the laptops they have to go all the way to the library where the librarian has instructed them to hold the laptops “criss-cross applesauce” — which I think in adult language means “hold tightly”.
The LapStrap would eliminate a lot of dropping (or concerns about dropping) and as you can see it fits my daughter pretty well.
And here’s a picture that should be titled “7:50 am bus stop blues”. My kids took the photo as we were waiting for the bus. It should give you an idea of what the adult fit is for the LapStrap.
LapStrap
http://www.thelapstrap.com
$24.95 — with quantity discounts and logo placement available (for corporations)
What I Like:
– Compact
– High quality
– Grippy rubber under the strap to prevent slipping
What Can Be Improved:
– Offers no outer protection or accessory holding – which is all part of the design and not really a shortcoming
The LapStrap