Mobile Edge ScanFast Backpack 2.0 laptop bag review

Flying may - for now - be a remotely distant memory for most of us but business people will remember how frustrating it was at airport checkpoints; when laptops and electronic devices have to be taken out of bags and laid bare in boxes. Mobile Edge wants to change all this with its ScanFast backpack which is a traditional-looking laptop carrier that wants to make screening at airport security checkpoints faster. The bag is on sale directly from Mobile Edge for $99.99. 

Design

This backpack was created with roving professionals that criss-cross the world (and airports) in mind after the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) issued guidance for checkpoint-friendly laptop bags that can be either butterfly style, sleeve style or trifold style.

The ScanFast backpack 2.0 is a Butterfly-style bag which means that it opens up flat. To do that, Mobile Edge moved side pockets to the front which some users might find disappointing as you can’t easily access in a one-shoulder strap scenario. Frequent travelers may have preferred the older design that eschewed those two rear pockets.

At 13.5" x 19" x 8" for an empty weight of 3.7 lbs, it is on the heavy side but just bear in mind that this is a bag that can support a 17.3-inch laptop which can be a couple of inches thick and, often, weighing more than 10 pounds. The laptop compartment is 16.75" x 11.2"x 1.8" which is big enough to accommodate any member from the Dell Precision workstation family.

Mobile Edge also chose to use a DuPont material called Sorona and produced partially with agricultural feedstocks (corn) which, Mobile Edge says, requires 30% less energy than petrochemical products and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 63%.

The bag itself is split into five layers if we could call them so. The big one is where your laptop (in its own designated pouch secured with a thick velcro strap) will go and has one large zip pocket that could easily hold another laptop. The second compartment contains a media pocket for devices with a physical headphone jack (with a cable pass-through) as well as a zippered mesh pocket and two partitions.

Then there’s a third zippered compartment on what is the rear side of the backpack where you can potentially fit a large tablet. 

The fourth one is a slightly smaller pocket with a larger opening with dedicated slots for business cards, memory cards, USB drives, pens and much more. Finally, there’s two more easy-access pockets at the back, around 10” x 5” that would be a good match for anything miscellaneous.

The back panel is, according to the manufacturer, ergonomically designed with a cool-mesh and padded shoulder straps, one of them with a small mesh pocket. There’s sadly no pass-through strap to hang the backpack on top of a wheeled suitcase or an external USB port that allows you to keep a battery charger inside. 

In use

We haven’t tested the ScanFast backpack 2.0 in real life as we haven’t travelled abroad with it yet. But Mobile Edge gave very clear instructions on how to stow your laptop and your gear (e.g. battery charger) and how to unzip your case and run it through X-Ray machines flat without removing the laptop from your bag. Note that US airport checkpoint requirements will likely differ from other foreign/international airports.

A word about the Sorona material; it is soft and stain resistant but also quite sturdy. What we don’t know is whether it will be long lasting. Bear in mind though that the bag comes with a lifetime warranty although we don’t know how that applies to international customers.

Two zips travel all the way across the three sides of the bag and look to do the job. We have some reservations regarding the use of thick nylon strings which all but preclude the use of travel padlocks. We’d also have liked the strap that holds the rubberized handle to look less flimsy. Very often, it’s all about the perception. The mesh media pocket is also far too small for most modern smartphones, which, like the Huawei Mate 20X can be almost as big as the Apple iPad Mini tablet.

We put the bag under a running shower for around a minute and although it is not waterproof, it did a decent job of keeping the water out. We would recommend packing your items in waterproof bags for added security.

We filled it up with books, magazines and a laptop and walked around the office (in lockdown) for a short period, going up and down stairs in the process. A very subjective test but one that brought to light the potential strengths and weaknesses of the ScanFast backpack 2.0; the semi rigid structure of the backpack could cause some discomfort; that will depend on your body morphology and will be very subjective although that is mitigated by strategically placed padded bumpers.

Final verdict

There’s a lot to like about MobileEdge’s ScanFast backpack 2.0; it is well designed, sturdy, comes with a feature that should be a must have for frequent travelers (especially those travelling in and out of the United States) and is reasonably priced. We love the small details like the hidden bottle holder and the hard rubber feet to protect its base.

But we can’t help but think that there’s a bit more that could have been added, more specifically to make it more secure. Steel tabs for the zips for example, a combination lock or a steel cable to attach to other luggage or RFID protection pockets to store cards. Very often they won’t be enough to dissuade a professional thief but will make life for the opportunistic ones a bit more difficult, hopefully.

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