I’m always on the hunt for a new bag that is stylish and minimal for carrying just my Macbook Pro, tablet, and some accessories. So when I seen the iHome Smart Sleeve by LifeWorks I thought I’d give it a go to see how it works out. I’ll be honest when I was first contacted about this bag I wasn’t as interested since I seen the “i” in front of it, and I’m not usually interested in Apple stuff beyond my Macbook Pro. But something about this caught my attention. Was that attention justified?
Style
What caught my attention right away about this bag was the color. The iHome Smart Sleeve only comes in Heathered Grey. It is the grey which caught my attention because I thought it would provide a nice contrast color to my black wool coat that I where. Color coordination is very important to me, so with that I decided to check it out. The gray color is two toned with the zipper area being in black. Overall the bag was quite a good looking from both in pictures and when seen in person.
While gray on the outside, on the inside the pockets can come in a variety of colors. One of the places you can purchase this bag is from on Amazon. On Amazon it shows various interior colors like blue (my preferred color choice of course), green, orange, and pink. Definitely wish the sample I was sent had the blue, but it came in black which is also very nice looking and matches well with my coat.
Function
The iHome Smart Sleeve is design to organized all of your Apple products in a neat and easy way. It has compartments for your Macbook (13 inch max), iPad, iPhone, and all of the chargers for these devices. The bag does a great job of labeling of the compartments so you know exactly what device goes where, even down to the the chargers and pockets for some ear buds. If you are an Apple fan with the entire portfolio of Apple products, this is definitely a bag to organize all of them. Me personally mainly just have the Macbook Pro, and my tablet of choice is the Nexus 7. But If you have a mix of devices, you can still use these compartments for your devices.
Experience
I will say this right now, this bag is awesome. It server almost all of the needs I have for a laptop bag for me at least. It is fashionable, minimal, and I was easily able to organize all of my devices. Personally I use a 13 inch Macbook Pro, Nexus 7, Blackberry Z10, and HTC One X+. I was able to use this bag to tuck away each of those (except the One X+ which I always keep in my pocket) using the designated compartments for each (laptop, phone, tablet), and store all the chargers. For the chargers this included the Macbook Pro charger, the myCharge Peak 6000 portable charger, and some various USB cables in the phone charger compartment.
the only knock I had with this bag is that there was no storage space or compartment for miscellaneous stuff like if you had USB sticks or any kind or other items. For my use I ended up using the ear bud compartment to put a few USB sticks in there. IF this had a compartment for that as well it would be damn near perfect. While this is minor and I was able to work around it, I do wish they had thought of this as well. What if I had a slim external hard drive, it would be nice to have a spot for this as well.
Wrap Up
The iHome Smart Sleeve bag organizing all your Apple (or other) products very well, and does it in a way that is stylish and minimal. It has a spot for almost everything and does it for a price that is only $49.99 (Amazon.com). With that price point, if you are an Apple fan or not, you might want to take a hard look at this one. I for one like this bag and it keeps me mobile.
