I've been given the sack

Not quite a 'gadget', but |I've just taken delivery of a new rucksack.  Hardly earth-shaking, but it looks like it will resolve a couple of problems.  I've been looking for a reasonably discrete way of carrying both a laptop and my camera gear round, and the Lowepro Fastpack 250 fills the bill.  It holds a 15.4" widescreen laptop (Dell - tick), a large camera (translate - Nikon plus battery pack - tick), extra lenses, memory cards, something termed 'personal accessories', etc.  About the only area where I'd take issue with the description is that the bag is intended to hold a flash unit - so far, I haven't been able to find a way of fitting my SB-600 in without straining the zips unmercifully.  So it stays out for the time being.

The rucksack has a waist strap, and fully loaded is relatively comfortable when worn properly.  Lots of pockets and little hideaways for, well, hiding things away.

The nice bit about it is that it's a side-loader, i.e. by swinging the bag around on the left shoulder you can remove the camera without taking the bag off completely.  Whilst this is helpful in that you don't need to shrug the bag off completely, I'm thinking it will take some time to get the hang of it to get to the stage where it's much quicker.

The bag is described as meeting airline restrictions for carry-on luggage, and while I'd think it was stretching the limits a bit, it's certainly nowhere near the size of some bags I've seen being slung into an overhead locker.  I seriously wonder how the passengers involved can think these are reasonable - I swear I saw one the size of a cricket bag (that's the luggage, not the passenger) once.

Conclusion - looks like I'm going to recommend this.  Of course, it will have to stand up to the wear and tear of daily trips, probably not always fully loaded with gear, but my bags tend to either fail early, or make the grade over extended use.  By all reports, the Lowepro's are reasonably well-made and don't seem to suffer from poor workmanship.  Some of the zips seems a little small for the loads they are expected to take, but perhaps that's just because I always try to cram more in than the bag is designed to take.  Time will tell.