Netbooks and tablets look like they would be cool to have out and about for surfing, reading, writing, etc. The small screen size is the price you pay for the extra portability. This is great for women who can keep it in their purse, but what about guys? If I am going to be carrying a messenger bag around, I might as well put a fully capable 13"-15" laptop in it. However it’s not something I would want to lug around all the time- not because of the weight of the laptop, but because a larger bag tends to attract more stuff. Ideally you wouldn’t carry a bag that is much bigger than the gadget. With netbooks, and especially tablets, that brings you into man purse territory.
Is it likely that men will start carrying bags not much bigger than a tablet without attracting scorn, or will they only so far as a smallish messenger bag that is still much bigger than necessary?
An iPad is certainly suitable for keeping on hand all the time when you are out and about, but I can’t see leaving the house with one, because any bag that would be suitable for carrying it will make me look like Alan from the Hangover. If you are a man, and bought an iPad, are you leaving the house with it? How are you carrying it?
Get yourself something from these folks. I have a leather satchel and have received a number of compliments and they are manly enough that I haven’t gotten any crap when I use it.
Right now, I just carry my iPad as if it were a book - in hand, or tucked under my arm. It’s in the “official” Apple cover/case, so that’s easy enough.
The man purse is already legitimate in most Asian metropolitan cities, and that’s before all these tablets came out. If you need to carry something, what’s the big deal? I have a feeling that most western guys are too caught up in being perceived a certain way for it to catch on in the US, though.
Here’s a tangential question: I’m not male, but I have a guy’s dislike of anything resembling a “purse.” If I’m going to carry something it’s got to be leather or canvas or something else tomboy-looking, but even then I can’t seem to get the habit of carrying a bag. I have a ton of them because I love to buy them, and once my iPad arrives I want to carry it with me.
So here’s my problem. Hopefully some of you bag-carrying folks can help me. When I go into work (which I do a couple of days a week) I like to take my technology with me. But I’ve never seen anybody walking around this or any other office with a bag over their shoulder (even a small one). The last thing I want to do is leave my iPad in a drawer somewhere–even if the drawer has a lock, the whole point of bringing it along is to have it with me. So do I just take it out of the bag, stash the bag someplace, and carry it around? What if I have more than one thing I want to carry?
I can understand if you carry a purse and keep purse-type things in it (makeup, address book, wallet, keys, etc–things you don’t generally need often during the day). But what if your whole purpose for having a bag is to hold the thing you want to have handy all the time? Will I look like a dork carrying it around? I probably sound like an idiot for asking this, but I genuinely want to know how people deal with this issue.
