Filofax Architect Portrait Courier Bag

I had never considered buying a Filofax bag until recently. 

I spotted a Filofax bag on offer in their sale. It was still quite expensive but I had a discount voucher that I could use so it brought the price down a more sensible price.

So this is the Filofax Architect Portrait Courier, it's rather smart don't you think?

It came in it's own dust bag which I keep it in when I'm not using it.

It's bigger than I thought it would be. It has two main pockets which are very generous in size. Turning the bag over there is another slip pocket which will take an iPad or similar full size tablet. There is a grab handle at the top, and also a strap for looping the bag over a wheeled suit case handle.

The woven shoulder strap is very generous in width and it is also quite long too but it has a metal buckle to adjust the length.

Now in terms of what will fit inside.  The smaller front pocket has a variety of slots for pens and cards but still has enough room for other small items too, including a personal size Filofax!

The leather flap has a zip pocket in it as well, plenty big enough for your smart phone or similar. The flap closes with a magnetic fastener in the middle.

The slim pocket on the back can take an iPad easily, it has a velcro tab at the top to hold it closed too.

The main pocket can take an A4 Filofax or an A4 size zipped conference folder easily. I've also tried it for size with my 10" Netbook PC, and it slides in easily with space to spare. In the photo is an A5 Zip Holborn, that goes in sideways with plenty of room too. I think the biggest size of PC you could fit in would be a 11.6" display one, such as a MacBook Air or a similar sized Chromebook.

 

A large ring size personal Filofax as shown here also fits inside the front pocket easily. 

As you might be able to see on the detail of the front flap it is made of leather and textile lined inside. But the leather is a smooth finish and a pebbled finish in two distinctive panels.

Being a vertical format bag compared to the horizontal format of most messenger bags I find it retains it's rigidity a lot better. It also works better when I'm using my Cabin Zero bag on flights.

I'm very pleased with it, grab one for the man in your life for Christmas....

New Messenger Bag

As you will recall I'm a happy user of a 'man bag' or in my case a camera bag with out the internal inserts, which I use for carrying all of my everyday clutter around with me, I hate stuff in my pockets, and I tend not to forget things if they are in my bag!

This is still working well, but I recently became the owner of an iPad and also I'm in the throws of moving over to the more regular use of the A5 Filofax.

The existing bag will just about take an A5, but it's a bit of a squeeze, but it will not take the iPad safely. Not quite big enough. I have an old 12" Targa laptop bag that I've used for a few years, it will take the A5 ok and the iPad ok, the main problem with it is that being a laptop case, it has a zip that goes around three sides of the bag, so you are always looking for a flat surface for it before you open it. Not ideal.

So looking on the Lowepro site I noticed that one of their new product ranges called the Event Messenger has provision for the iPad in a padded compartment and when I checked the dimensions it was plenty big enough in height and width for an A5 Malden. Perfect, so I ordered the Event Messenger 150 which is the medium size of the range. I hate bags that are too big!

So this is also a combination of tablet/camera bag, but the internal dividers all come out, so you can reconfigure the internal space as you need. The interior is soft and well padded too.

I've left one vertical divider in and I can tuck my reading glasses in at the end.

As well as a broad strap there is also a carry handle useful when you are lifting it in and out of the car. There's also a slim outside pocket on the rear side of the bag, which will be fine for travel documents and the like.

Here it is with an A5 Malden and an A5 Finsbury, both 30 mm ring models, and tucked in the back section is my iPad in it's leather case.

In the front there is also a full width zip pocket with pockets for things like mobile phones, iPods, compact cameras, pens, memory cards etc.

The flap secures with a clip and two velcro strips. The shoulder strap is broad and has a padded shoulder pad as well, so it's quite comfortable to carry fully loaded.  There are also elasticated pockets on the outside at each end with expand to take a small bottle of water or similar.

Like my other man bag/day bag it will take my camera gear... but I have a dedicated Lowepro camera bag for that!



  

New Day Bag

It's nearly a year since we moved here to France and I started using my 'man bag' on a daily basis, I guess you might have read the post I put on Philofaxy. I find this size of bag quite a convenient size of bag to use most of the time and it's perfect of a pocket Filofax and my other clutter I carry.

However, it it more or less full all the time and it is too small if I also want to carry a personal size Filofax. I have numerous bags that are considerably bigger, but they are almost too big for daily use. I've looked and been tempted by TimBuk2 and RickShaw bags, but their availability this side of the Atlantic was one of the limiting factors.

So in order to look for something slightly larger I started looking at what size of bag I actually needed. It was essential that it could take a personal size Filofax in addition to things like my reading glasses (can't cope without them these days!), my mobile phone needed to be easily accessible, space for other things but preferably in pockets rather than rattling around in a mess.

There are a lot of bags on the market, but in the end I started to look again at my favourite Lowepro camera bags. The one thing I like about this brand is that they make bags in various styles and in many sizes in increments from small to large, so it was relatively easy to choose a bag style I liked and then pick the size I needed. They are also good quality and good value for money.

I found their customer service people very helpful in answering questions about my target bag to ask if the padded dividers could be removed which they can.

I didn't really need another camera bag, I have two quite large ones all ready and my camera with it's add-on grip/battery pack is quite a bulky item, so I concentrated on my other requirements first.  The grip does detach, but I prefer to use it with the grip on all the time.

I also found You Tube useful for looking at video reviews people had done about possible bags I had chosen from the range of bags available.

So the decision was eventually made and I ordered my bag from Amazon, it arrived within 3 days from Amazon UK which I thought was quite quick.

And here is my new bag, it's a Lowepro Nova 170 AW in Ultramarine Blue, yes a bit of colour co-ordination to my new car! But it was also available in black and beige. I am very much a blue person so there wasn't much of a decision to be made there.

The bag has a main compartment, plus other pockets and additional elasticated pockets at either end. In addition to the carry handle there is a decent shoulder strap too.

Here it is with my film camera minus it's battery grip and a flash gun. The flap over cover is zipped and there is a buckle too.

Take out the camera gear and one of the padded dividers which are held in using velcro and it becomes a great bag for a Filofax or two!

 

This is my personal Malden and my French English dictionary and there is still plenty of room to the left for my reading glasses to slip in. The outer zipped pocket will hold my compact camera and the zip pocket in the outside flap will be the perfect place for my phone.

Then I thought I wonder what it will hold without any dividers in it...

Yes it will take an A5 Filofax, in this case my grey A5 Malden, so there are lots of Filofax possibilities with this bag!!

I'm very pleased with my new 'addition' I'm sure it will get a lot of use in the coming summer months.