I've written previously about my Framework 16 laptop and the STM Dux laptop bag that I purchased for it. They're a potent combination. My Framework 16 will come with me most places as a device to consolidate drone footage, video, etc.. The Framework 16's dGPU makes light work of encoding video which makes up for its bulk over my lighter and more compact Framework 13s.
I wouldn't normally take a laptop on a camping holiday however, but when there's the opportunity to stick a roof over your head it becomes an essential.
So here I am, looking out at the field in front of me and I realised the way I've packed my backpack makes it more of a LAN in a bag as opposed to just for getting down to business. This packing style has its origins in the fact that I find myself constantly being an aspiring gamer, I'd love to find the time but seldom do. Especially over the last several months where if I haven't been asleep I've been working around the clock 😢.
So what better an opportunity than to turn out this backpack and see what's inside. The STM Dux (I swear this isn't an ad!) keeps everything well organised, the two sides zip open to give you access to its contents. It's an approach to organisation that shares more than a passing resemblance to camera backpacks.
Emptying everything out demonstrates a surprising amount of contents. It's a large backpack but I like to think of it as the clown car of backpacks.
Starting at the bottom of the pack, the first item out is my travel router. I'm not trying to pad out my word count so rather than rehash everything you can see my previous posts about travel routers HERE and the follow up HERE. Long story short, I consider them an essential for better security and easier device management. Win-win.
Sharing the bottom space is an Xbox controller. Quite possibly the most comfortable controller shape I've managed to get my hands onto. I use a case for the controller - as I do for everything, partially due to my extreme OCD for looking after things but in the instance of the controller, it also avoids the situation where the buttons or sticks are depressed in the backpack for a month and the controller comes out damaged when you need it.
Taking one from the top pocked and one from the mid section I have two mice (apparently for a computer mouse the plural is mouses but I'm not doing that). I don't use two mice at once, they both serve very different purposes. The MX Anywhere mouse is my regular workhorse. As the name implies it works practically anywhere even on glass table tops making it one of my most essential pieces of travel tech. My other mouse, a Logitech G502x is a gaming mouse I find comfortable for my hand size, but being a gaming sensor and with feet I want to avoid damaging, it only gets use on appropriate surfaces and if I manage to get some of that gaming time I'm often wishing for.
Continuing with the mid section, this item is cheating - it's my Shargeek Storm 2 (recently renamed the Shargeek 100). I say it's cheating as it's sometimes in the bag and sometimes not. But this time it's there. The Storm 2 is my favorite battery bank (don't we all have favorites?) and can put out 100W if charge. Not enough to stop the Framework 16's battery from depleting, but enough to slow the drain if gaming.
Rounding out the mid section is a set of Logitech Pro X Wireless headphones. These are the second most comfortable gaming headphones I've found for my head, beaten only by the newer Pro X 2 Lightspeed headphones which improve upon the Pro X Wireless by adding a swivel to the ear cups. If only Logitech could add simpler naming I wouldn't be getting RSI talking about them.
Up in the top of the main backpack compartment we have the power supply for the Framework 16. Framework managed to create the world's first commercially available 180W USB-C Power Delivery charger and at full draw much like the Storm 2 above, it's still not enough to prevent the Framework 16's battery from depleting. It is impressively compact for its power output however and in keeping with my "nothing gets a scratch" policy gets its own pouch too.
We round out the contents of my backpack with the thinkTANK Secure Pixel Pocket Rocket (OK, maybe Logitech's names aren't that long). This is the best soft case I've found for framework expansion cards and keeps everything neatly together in the top pocked of my backpack, together with the previously mentioned MX Anywhere mouse.
That's it! That's what I like to consider a LAN in a bag. With a few more similarly minded geeks we could travel around and hold flash LANs wherever we want! Or I can just aspire to find the time to unpack all of this stuff and smash out an hour of Satisfactory here and there.
