Unboxing: Crumpler The Formal Lounge Hybrid Bag

Much to my excitement, a HOOOGE box was awaiting my return from work today:

The box is towering, but surprisingly light.

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Inside, it's well padded and there is a greeting letter from the seller. I recommend him on ebay. The product arrived quickly as promised, and the price is the cheapest within all the sites I scoured on the internet (and high street).

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Meet my new bag. It's a Crumpler bag called (funnily) The Formal Lounge. Opening the pack, I was immediately surprised but how well made the bag looked. I love the colour too.

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The front. The bag exudes quality. The material feels tough and the zips feel durable. Impeccable stitches. Crumpler bags are designed to look like a normal, everyday bag to prevent people from knowing what expensive contents lie inside (no laptop and DSRL in here dude, move on!).
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The back. The recess in between the pads at the back is apparently designed to protect your spine while carrying heavy loads. The Crumpler is well padded - filled to the brim with padding.

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Crumpler. I've always wanted a Crumpler - for almost 2 years! I never thought I could afford one of these, they're mighty expensive. Having said that, I got it on eBay for almost half the price - so it really pays to do research before buying. Puan Mama Sarah have ALWAYS been offering to buy me a Crumpler, for e.g. my birthday or our anniversary. But I've never had the heart to allow Puan Mama Sarah to spend so much money on just a bag.

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Sexy (read the wacky writing!). This time however, Puan Mama Sarah insisted I get the Crumpler -- perhaps she knows how long I've been wanting this. Having bought the DSLR meant we need a proper camera bag as well.

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The camera compartment is located at the bottom of the bag, easily accessible by just unzipping the bottom half. The compartments (pictured above) are further compartmentalised by these velcro fastened straps. There's enough space for the camera body, several lenses, filters and of course film a memory card.

This is the inside of the bag. You could see the laptop pouch on the floor of the bag. Lots of padding inside. I'm surprised though, there's not that much space for stuff. Perhaps enough for a book or two, several chargers and a jumper. Definitely not enough for a medical textbook! (perhaps, a medical textbook by itself is okay).

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My Vaio fitting veeeery snuggly into the laptop pouch. Just nice.
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View of a closed laptop pouch. Notice how thick it makes the anorexic Vaio look? That's because of all the padded layers.

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The Formal Lounge

I am extremely happy with the bag, I'm glad we got it for the camera and laptop. It's very well made, (to me) beautifully designed. My laptop fits very nicely into the pouch and I'm sure the camera compartment is MORE than enough for my photography equipment (that is, once it arrives ..... huu.) A hybrid backpack like this is perfect for my needs, especially on my (previously) frequent travels - it'd be nice to carry both my laptop and camera in one bag, and for photography expeditions, I could just remove the laptop pouch and store other things instead (for example, mosquito repellents).

*beaming* One happy customer here .

Links
1. Another review of the Formal Lounge.
2. An alternative mini-review on Flickr.
2. Review of another Crumpler bag I like: Gadgeteer.

Now all I got to do is wait patiently for the freaking camera!