OtterBox

The folks at OtterBox have taken on the challenge of keeping our hand-held gadgets protected.   Having recently purchased the BlackBerry Tour and being notoriously rough on cell phones, I was excited to receive OtterBox’s solutions - the Impact and Defender Series - for protecting one of the most important gadgets I own. 

Last May I raved about the OtterBox rugged laptop 7030 case which unfortunately has been discontinued, as OtterBox is now concentrating their product line primarily on hand-held technology.  I can understand the shift in focus, as it further underlines the ever-increasing, important role smartphones are playing in our hectic lives.

I have been a consumer of smartphones since 2004 when I purchased the Treo 300.  Since then I’ve owned seven different smartphones including Treos, the XV6700 and BlackBerries.  With each phone I desperately searched for the perfect case, and inadvertently became what is referred to in the gadget world as a "casewhore".  That’s fine, I wear the badge proudly, and claim pundit status when it comes to protecting my smartphones.

With that said… I’d like to introduce to you two of the best rugged cases on the market for the BlackBerry Tour:

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This article series is more of a laptop bag recommendation list rather than a laptop bag review.   Allow me to explain…

What does a software company like LitCentral know about laptop bags? Plenty. It’s the equivalent of asking a NASCAR driver what he thinks about tires. We already know who’s the best in the business and we’re dedicating the month of May to showing you what they’ve got.

All of the bags chosen for this article series were chosen for the quality of the manufacturing, design, materials and functionality.  It’s not always about money, so we didn’t factor cost into our initial round-table discussion about which manufactures to contact; we just wanted to contact the best.

Here at LitCentral Founders’ Blog we wanted to strive to do better than the mundane laptop bag reviews that inundate the web - offering a press kit, Photoshopped image and a cursory review.  In this three-part article series (What Bag Carries Your Geekd’m?) we lay hands on the product, take pictures and communicate the functionality and quality of these bags.  Part I of the series covers the best laptop and messenger bags.  Part II covers the best laptop backpacks, and Part III showcases some of the best laptop sling cases on the market.

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The off-road writer - now there’s a niche.  

If you find yourself toting your laptop on camping trips, hiking trails or perhaps everyday is a rocky adventure scaling the urban jungle, you may want to take extra precautions in protecting the prized possession that holds your latest masterpiece - the laptop. 

As long as you have hard drives with movable parts (Come on 500GB SSD!) and manufacturers like Apple producing laptops with glass screens (new Macbook/Macbook Pro) you can never be too cautious. There are extreme solutions and everyday precaution gear.  This article is all about the EXTREME.  As in, "I dropped my laptop bag halfway down the Himalayas and it took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’".

Aside from the overkill look of the 80s James Bond aluminum briefcase, there are a handful of "practical" off-road laptop bags:  OtterBox is arguably the king of rugged gadget cases.  Toting the 7030 laptop case will add a whopping 6 pounds to your mobility but it gets the job done for $189.95.

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