Sturdy Laptop Travel Cases? 100
biglig2 asks: "You may have seen on todays news that, after a foiled attempt to smuggle explosives on a plane here in the UK, UK airlines are now banning all cabin baggage on outgoing flights. Great timing, since I'm probably flying to the States next week, and this means putting my laptop, iPod and cellphone into the cargo hold. Since I have to assume that anything I put in the hold is going to be frozen, depressurized, and repeatedly jumped on by the baggage handlers, what hard laptop cases have Slashdot users found to be indestructible?"
all you need to know (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pelican.com/ [pelican.com]
if you have the cash for the flash: http://www.zerohalliburton.com/ [zerohalliburton.com]
Well the trick is to be smart about it. (Score:4, Informative)
Samsonite (Score:3, Informative)
Pressured, somewhat heated (Score:4, Informative)
the only really good way to ship your laptop (Score:2, Informative)
theft (Score:3, Informative)
Re:all you need to know MODEL NUMBERS (Score:3, Informative)
Re:all you need to know (Score:3, Informative)
I second the Zero Halliburton cases. I used to work for a distributor, and kept my ThinkPad in one of the brushed aluminum cases. Never had a problem.
My former employer's site [cases2go.com] has the cases for discount through an auction interface. They make cases for PDAs too - cool stuff.
It's a common misconception. (Score:3, Informative)
It's a common misconception that cargo holds are not pressurized or climatized.
Re:all you need to know (Score:2, Informative)
No I don't work there, but I do enjoy shiny things.
No (Score:3, Informative)
Since I have to assume that anything I put in the hold is going to be frozen, depressurized, and repeatedly jumped on by the baggage handlers,
None of that will happen.
Your valuables will simply be stolen by the TSA.
Re:Well the trick is to be smart about it. (Score:3, Informative)
Flight time between Heathrow and New York is approximately 7 hours. Check in time prior to a flight is at least 1 hour. I suspect your plan will be about as useful as a snowball in hell.
Furthermore, the specifications [apple.com] for a MacBook Pro (just picking a computer at random here) indicate that it is perfectly fine for storage between -13F and 113F (-24C to 45C) and a shipping altitude of 35,000 feet. It doesn't get that cold in the hold.
Chill dude!
Pelican, one vote (Score:4, Informative)
One caveat for anyone flying with pelican or z-h cases. They have been the drug smuggler's cases of choice for years now, and have a tendancy to get pulled by drug agency enforcers with alarming frequency (close to 100% in my case). There is a myth that having a nice rubber seal around the edges keeps drug sniffing dogs from doing their job, and the number of drug couriers lingering in prisons around the world shows that dogs are better trained than that.
When you travel with an expensive case, always put it inside another bag, I use a backpack which makes it easier to transport, or it will attract thieves like nothing else. I've seen one computer guy who let his daughter decorate his pelican with pink hello kitty stickers after painting it fluorescent pink, it stood out in any crowd, and was a useful deterent to thieves walking off with it.
You can't lock checked bagage any more, so just put a security seal on the case to see if it was opened. Ensure that your laptop cannot boot without a password, and any and all sensitive data is on a fully encrypted partition, with full backups left at home or online. All the other things you can do, such as noting serial and model numbers of everything you check is important, since if you fly regularly the chances of finally losing the laptop to thieves approaches one. Put the list of valuables on a post-it inside your passport and carry it with you. Airlines will not reimburse you for the cost of a laptop, you have to take out additional insurance which specifies full replacement costs. If you buy your ticket with a credit card, they may claim to cover losses due to theft, but often the small print requires you to provide them with a list of items well in advance of flying in order to actually have coverage.
the AC
Re:Pressured, somewhat heated (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pelican, one vote (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't had DEA issues, but I did have the TSA swab the outside and inside for explosives the one and only time I went through US security with it.
You can't lock checked bagage any more
Yes you can, if you get one of these [thetravelinsider.info] locks. There are a few manufacturers of them. Pelican has some in their lineup.