The awesome people over at Golla sent me over their Maelie laptop bag for review. For the two months I’ve used it fairly often – will it make me leave my tablets home and carry my laptop more often ? Let’s see:
Style
The Maelie Laptop Bag is made up of polyurethane material which looks remarkably close to leather. It’s cold beige on the outside with a dark gray polyester lining and orange striped accents.
The leather look material gives off a quality look and feel nothing too fancy very simple and casual. The wide bottom helps the bag stay in the upright position and not fall over or shift when not on your shoulder. The shoulder straps add even more portability to the bag.
Usablity
The 16.9″x 12.6″x5.9″ dimensions make it perfect for laptops up to 16″ and it includes enough compartments to make it a perfect travel companion. Until I received this bag for review I opted not to travel with my laptop. Mostly because I didn’t feel like having to carry an additional and very uncomfortable laptop backpack. Luckily for me I have several tablet bags making it easy to remain productive but for extended trips carrying my laptop is actually more ideal.
Over the last month I’ve been doing quite a bit a more traveling. In order to not be behind I need to carry as many gadgets as possible but I don’t believe in checking baggage so I needed to figure a way to both travel with minimal baggage and still be able to include my gadgets and necessities.
To my surprise the Golla MILA bag was perfect. There is a padded compartment with a velcro enclosure to protect my laptop. On either side of the compartment you’ll find some added elastic material making the compartment flexible enough to accommodate laptops of different widths up to 16″.
Outside of the laptop compartment is very spacious. If you needed to you could probably include another laptop and still fit in the accessories. For my purposes I was able to use the additional room for several changes of clothes, a few hair products and a makeup bag. There is not only a zipper pocket inside the bag but a zipper closure for the main compartment. Perfect for those nosey fellow travelers not to see what all you have in your bag sort of added protection.
Final Thoughts
I love this bag. I’m not usually a fan of “tote” like bags they are usually just so one-dimensional – one big pit to stuff things into. The Maelie bag from Golla is definitely perfect for a multitasker like me. There is a smaller zippered compartment to hold my phones, keys wallet and earphones – the things I would normally keep in the purse I’d usually also have to carry. It’s been from airport to airport and although cold beige is a light color it has survived without so much as a scratch. Although the material does seem easy enough to wipe clean if necessary. The Maelie bag is very durable without looking rugged.
My one complaint is that while packing for a trip I went to close my very stuffed Maelie bag and the leather tchotzke added to the zipper on the main compartment seemed to pop off a little too easily. It was simple enough to put back on but it made me more weary of how much I stuff into to. Admittedly I may have OVERDONE it and I’ll take the blame for that. No matter how much I seem to stuff into this bag it doesn’t alter it’s shape or form of the bag. This has definitely become one of my main bags of the summer and the cold beige color is a beautiful neutral color making it compatible with pretty much any travel outfit you can throw on.
The Golla Maelie Laptop bag is available at Best Buy for $69.99
