Rainebrooke Review & Giveaway!

Recently, I found out about an interesting company called Rainebrooke that sells a many colorful & stylish laptop bags. Rainebrooke’s goal is to supply their customers with several different choices of laptop bags that allow them to escape from the simple black bag that most people own.
Steve Fronek came up with the idea for Rainebrooke after his wife arrived home from a business trip and told him “she was tired of having such a bulky, boring laptop carrier”. The next day, Steve was sitting with his two daughters while they were coloring with crayons. The idea hit him…why not create bags that represent almost as many colors as a box of crayons yet are functional and stylish? Steve decided to take his idea and develop a company that would offer brightly colored laptop cases at an affordable price. With this…Rainebrooke was born!

Fun Fact: Rainebrooke was named after Steve’s daughters’ middle names, “Raine” and “Brooke”.

Review
Steve offered to send me one of Rainebrooke’s newest bags: the Metro-Travelers Laptop Bag. Because I wanted something unique and girly, I decided to go with the hot pink bag. After taking some time to use this bag and examine all it’s features, I am happy to report this is a fabulous bag!

My favorite thing about the Metro-Travelers bag is how much storage space there is. I have honestly never seen a laptop big with this much storage; it is fabulous! The front of this bag has two fairly large pockets that are perfect for storing your cell phone, PDA, calculator, keys, Nintendo DS, etc. When I opened the bag, I found two large compartments (both of which are padded). One can be used for your laptop and the other would work well for storing your power cord, mouse etc. Even after that, there is still enough room to throw in a few books. In side one of the compartments, I found two pockets, one with a zipper, and one with out. The same large pocket also has a clip that would be perfect for attaching your keychain to. When I turned the bag around, I found another huge pocket! This pocket is great for storing your files or notebooks. In addition, inside this pocket, there are seven (yes 7) separate compartments (one has a zipper). In addition, there is also a designated space to hold your identification card. Finally, on the back of the back pocket, there is another section that can either operate as a luggage handle pass (for ease when traveling) or yet another pocket! As you can see, the storage in this bag really is endless!

Other features of this bag that I like include the fact it is padded and is very light weight, which makes it easier to carry.

There is only one thing I would change about this bag. I would love if Rainebrroke added a zipper to the inside laptop pocket. Maybe I just worry too much but I feel more secure when my laptop is zippered in place. Because of this, I have actually been using the back pocket to store my laptop (which is actually working rather well). The only downside to that is that the back of pocket is not padded. However, by storing my laptop in the back pocket, it feels like I create even more room by being able to use the other pockets for my books, supplies, etc.

In addition, in the future, I would love to see Rainebrooke come up with some more color combinations to really represent that box of crayons. It would be great to see some yellows, greens and reds, as well as some different shades of the colors they already have. It’d also be fantastic if they could add in some patterned fabric! I think it would be fun to see Rainebrooke offer different accent colors (the accent color is currently black) as well. I would love to see them add white as an option, plus the option of having the bag all one color. Steve has told me that new color options will be released later this year (2009).

Overall, this is a great laptop bag. It is perfect for people of all ages. As I mentioned before, I am really fond of the space this bag provides. Even though it is slim, it is still able to solve all of my storage problems. To find out more about this bag, please visit here.

What can you win? One winner will receive a Rainebrooke Metro-Traveler laptop bag in their choice of color.

To enter, go here, then come back and leave a comment telling me which color you would choose if you win. This question must be answered to gain an entry in the giveaway.

Each of the following will give you one extra entry in the giveaway. Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each thing you do:
-Suggesting a new color, color combination, or patterned design for the Metro-Traveler laptop bag.
-Signing up for Rainebrooke’s newsletter. Please let me know the email address you used to sign up with.
-Looking through Rainbrooke’s ‘Our Bags’ page, then coming back here and telling me another one of their bags that you’d love to own.
-Subscribing to my blog via email.
-Adding my button to your blog sidebar.
-Following me on Twitter (ihchicky). Please leave your Twitter name.
-Tweeting about this giveaway (with a link to this page) on Twitter. Please leave a link to your tweet. You can do this once a day.
-Blogging about this giveaway on your blog. Please leave a link to your blog post in your comment.

This giveaway will end on Tuesday, February 24rd at 11:59pm (Central Standard Time). After the giveaway has ended, the winner will be picked randomly using random.org. EMAIL RULES: In order to win, you must provide a valid email. I will be notifying the winner by email only. Please make sure your blog profile includes your email address and make sure that it is visible. If you do not have a blogger account, please make sure you have included your email address in your post. If there is no email address provided, to contact the winner, another person will be chosen. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to the winning email notification with their complete mailing address (I will be forwarding all this information to the sponsor), If this information is not received within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is open to residents of the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium!

Good Luck!