Brain Bag

2 Months with the Brain Bag

Let me just preface this by saying that in all my life, I have never written a review for anything I have ever purchased, which is crazy considering how much we rely on reviews before making a big purchase (or even a small purchase for that matter)! That said, this will be my first ever review of any product, so I do hope I can provide some insight to anyone looking to purchase the Brain Bag! I have been using this bag daily for 2 months now and I carry a lot of stuff with me every day to work. Because of the work I do as well as being a student, I needed a bag that could carry at least two laptops plus a bunch of other stuff. I work at a university full-time in student affairs, adjunct online on the side, and also travel for consulting gigs both in state and out. I am also a PhD candidate working heavily on my dissertation, so everything I carry is there so that I can set up anywhere there is an internet connection and get right to work. I am also a big guy, around 5'10" and 250 pounds, which I think is worth mentioning when talking about how the bag fits and feels when carrying it. I also want to disclose that I have no affiliation with any of the products I am about to list. I just want to provide information and insight into what I haul daily so you can get a sense of what I can fit in the bag and how it functions for me. The Brain Bag has two main compartments, and let me just say they both provide ample space for storage. In one compartment, I carry a 14-inch Tom Bihn Cache that is hooked onto the bag's rail loops and holds my 14-inch HP Spectre. In that same compartment, I also carry a 15.6-inch ASUS portable monitor with its Smart Case, a sweater, and a Logitech MX Mechanical Mini keyboard inside a Logitech keyboard sleeve. In the other main compartment, I carry a 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 inside a tomtoc sleeve, a large Moleskine hardcover classic expanded notebook with 400 pages, and a tomtoc accessory pouch. Inside said accessory pouch, I carry an 8-foot usbc to usbc cable, an Apple 70-watt charging block, a MagSafe charging cable for the MacBook, the power cable for the portable monitor, a Logitech Anywhere 3S mouse, and an Anker 100-watt three port charging block. All of the wires in the accessory pouch are neatly kept with silicone cable ties. For the three external pockets, I carry the following: Top pocket: Reading and blue-light glasses in their case; Front external pocket #1: Four pens in the included pen slots and my Beats Fit Pro headphones; Front external pocket #2: An INIU portable power bank, a few silicone cable ties, and a handful of Zeiss lens wipes. Even with all of this in the Brain Bag, there is still room for additional items, though I honestly don't see myself carrying more than this, with the exception of maybe an additional charging cable or 2 and my Kindle. I keep the bag cinched down a little so that my stuff does not flop around during my 5 minute walk to and from the parking garage every morning. I also purchased some strap keepers to keep the excess straps from slapping around in the wind and they have worked well. My loaded bag is no doubt heavy, but the edgeless shoulder straps make it comfortable to haul around and they are my favorite feature of this bag. I have also had no issue walking around the airport with my bag fully loaded as described above (with the exception of my sweater because I was wearing it) with my carry-on bag rolling beside me. The bag flew with me on an American Airlines flight where it fit under the seat in front of me without any trouble. Overall, this bag has worked well for me and my only regret is not buying it sooner. The material feels durable and right out of the box you can tell the bag is well made and built to last. The zippers are sturdy, move smoothly, and make it easy to get things in and out without any issues. After two months of daily use, I am very happy with this purchase!

Smart

I love this bag. I have the Synik 30 for work and travel and I can’t imagine anything topping that bag for those purposes. However, I like keeping that bag mostly for work and don’t want to empty it and refill it every day so I was looking for another Tom Bihn bag, that could maybe fit more when I want to stuff it with a lot of random things to go about my day. I had my eye on the brain bag for a while, I liked that it could fit two laptops into two different sections and I liked that the front pockets were a lot bigger in size so that I could fit a variety of things in them. This bag definitely did the job. When I have a craft day, I can throw all of my brushes in the front pockets, throw in my watercolor paper in the main, have room for a sweater, my water cups and all of my daily needed stuff (like wallet, keys etc) can easily fit in the other front pocket. I’ve also used it for the gym, day in the park, and hiking. It has let me ‘Tetris’ all of my stuff in a way that makes sense every time. This is my rugged ‘do it all’ bag that I enjoy using every time I pick it up. I don’t think it will replace my Synik for work because I like all of the top compartments of that bag too much to change, but this is my go to hobby bag that has easily fit every situation.

Awesome pack with lots of room for my gear and my two kids when on go. The BB has superb stitching and quality materials and it carries very well for how big it is. I like that I can compress it down when it's not fully packed. This won't be the last Tom Bihn bag that I buy!