After much anticipation we have finally received the Joomla! Laptop bag. At first impressions were a bit negative since I had naively set such high expectations. In this review I try to give a non Joomla’s bias impression of the bag to help you determine whether this is the bag to haul your sensitive gear.

Let us discuss the first aspect of why a Joomla! loyalist like myself would want this bag and of course this being the Joomla! branded embroidery. The logo looks flawless and the colors are as vibrant as ever. There are no visible flaws such as gaps in stitching. The Joomla! logotype is very crisp yet it does show the occasional stitch gap however that can be expected in such thin stitch patterns. This bag represents the Joomla! well and the brand is not diluted by having manufacturer logo’s on it anywhere.

I often look at the padding of the bag first to determine quality. The answer I ask myself is, if I put my bag down, it would be cable of a little kick from passing by pedestrians. This bag disappointingly contains no padding other than the material itself. However to be fair the back of the bag contains the padding I am looking for and is similar to medical padding for arm and wrist braces.

The majority of material being used for the bag is a tuff nylon mesh. The strap and the close locks contain the same. One feature in material that is appreciated is the choice of shoulder padding. This should pad is roughly a half inch thick and uses a rubber material. The bottom of the bag uses a similar material and looks tough enough to be dragged by a car for a mile. I’d say 2 miles however the material is once again not thick enough to really protect it from impact.

The inside of the bag is well organized. Most laptop bag manufacturers place a partition in the center to contain the laptop which are attached from the sides and not the bottom. This often causes small items to float from one area to other areas of the bag during travel. Joomla!’s bag actually creates the partition in the rear of the inside and is sealed at the bottom. This is a huge plus when rummaging around for those pesky thumb drives that always seem to end up at the bottom of the bag.

This bag is very generous in pockets. By my count there are 7 unsecured pockets (not including the 3 pen slots or ID holder) and 4 zippered pockets. One huge zipper pockets is located in the outside rear of the bag and a small one in the outside front. Both side of the outside contain water bottle pockets. The inside contains all of the rest are the standard pockets you come to expect in your portable workspace.

There is a lot of space in this bag and holds both Dell & Toshiba 15” laptops with room to spare. It maybe be possible to fit a 17” laptop however it would be very snug. There is plenty of room inside to hold all your travel gadgets such as ipods, power supplies, mice and more.

Overall I’d say this bag meets the need of most consumers and Joomla! users. As for the Apple loyalists whom love to tote their $3,000 rigs ($1,500 to anyone who isn’t Steve Jobs) around, I’d recommend something with a bit more padding.