Review: 3 TSA-Approved Laptop Bags Compared – Belkin Flythru, Skooba Checkthrough Brief & Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer
If you’re a geek like us, you never travel without your laptop. While netbooks have become more popular for lightweight personal travel, most of us still have to lug full size notebooks for work. Given the travel situation in the post-9/11 world, we were extremely happy when we heard that TSA (the airport security folks) put out specifications for laptop bags to allow laptops to go through security without having to be removed from the bag. Sure, you could always travel with your laptop, but those of us who travel regularly know what a hassle the X-ray checkpoints can be.
Typically, with an ordinary laptop bag, security makes you remove a laptop and put it in a bin by itself, with nothing covering it. This means, on top of removing your shoes, emptying your pockets, taking off your watch, belt, cell phone, keys, yank out your zip lock bag with your gels and liquids, you also have to dig out your laptop.
Given that most laptop thefts take place in airports, and the majority of those take place in the exit of the X-ray line, being able to keep your laptop secure and hidden in your bag is a big deal and a time saver. If you travel through a major US airport such as Atlanta or Chicago, you know that even saving 20 seconds per person can add up to huge time savings and shortened lines when considering the thousands of people moving through the checkpoints in those airports.
It has been several years since TSA announced their guidelines for approved bags, and we felt it was time to see what the various bag manufacturers had come up with. We contacted a total of 7 manufacturers asking for their offerings, and three sent us review units: Belkin “Flythru”, Skooba “Checkthrough Brief”, and Tom Bihn “Checkpoint Flyer”. Let’s see if any of these TSA compliant laptop bags fit the bill.
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The race is starting to get interesting as the teams reached the Pacific Ocean last night. There were a number of different “corridors†that were available. Inside a corridor, subsonic jets are allowed, and the leg distance/time restrictions are waved, but you must hit all the airports listed in the corridor assignments. 
If you’re a gamer, and even if you’re not, you probably sometimes groan when having to learn a plethora of new keyboard commands. First person shooter games are notorious for having a complex key map to allow players control in their virtual world. Simulation games and real time strategy games can be even worse (since their key maps tend to be even more specialized and non-standard.) Likewise, how many times while working on a spreadsheet or doing photo editing or some other drawn out task did you wish you could just hit 1 key to start a macro of multiple keyboard shortcuts to be fired in order? If you fall into any of these categories, then a product like one of the Belkin Nostromo Speedpads is for you! 
Our second installment of “Flight Sim Gadgets” is the eMagin z800 3DVisor. This consumer 3D Virtual Reality helmet was recently tested by the geeks and was put through its paces both for Flight Simulator and other uses.
Today we kick off our “Flight Simulator Geek†week by looking at the TrackIR 4 Pro by NaturalPoint. The TrackIR product line has been lauded as one of the “must have†accessories for Flight Simulator addicts and today the geeks try out this newest version that has built upon their award winning line of head tracking systems. 
Today the Geeks’ take a look at the fourth installment in the Battlefield series of games. Considered one of the best multiplayer FPS game series over the past 5 years, does this new futuristic version stack up to it’s predecessors? Pull up a chair and let’s find out.