Category: Reviews

If you are someone that travels a lot for work or pleasure, you are likely going to find the need to bring your laptop with you at some point. Bringing a laptop can be a hassle considering the effort it takes to get the laptop out of your bag and back in it while going through security.

Unpacking your laptop backpack if it’s not TSA friendly can be a real hassle, especially if it is packed with your stuff.

Imagine how nice it would be, if you could just simple unzip your bag, unfold it, put it on the conveyor and you are done! No unpacking, no trouble with getting your laptop out of the sleeve.

Well, today is your lucky day, because I’ve decided to review five of the best TSA Checkpoint friendly laptop backpacks and bags and present them on my blog. These gears vary in price, there are premium and general ones as well, to make sure you find one that fits your budgets as well as your budget.

A TSA approved laptop backpack is a must if you are traveling a lot. Here is our list of the best five currently on the market. Feel free to browse the table, and click on the product names to find the reviews about the certain product.

1. Timbuk2 Uptown – The TSA Friendly Laptop Backpack

The Timbuk2 Uptown is a pretty neat looking TSA friendly laptop backpack. It has everything that an everyday traveler might need, even if you are commuting cross-country.

When it comes to organization, this laptop rucksack is the absolute best. The small zippered pocket on the front of the bag is great if you want to keep smaller items where you can easily grab them. There is a side pocket on the left side of the bag which is stretchy, meaning it can fit anything at the size of a water bottle. To be honest, it would be great if there were a side pocket on the right side as well, because most of the time one water bottle is not enough, especially if you are taking a longer trip.

There is a larger space in the backpack as well, which is capable of holding all of your books, your clothes, and other gadgets or everyday stuff you may carry around with you. The design inside this compartment helps you keep things organized.

The laptop compartment of the laptop-friendly backpack can easily hold up any portable computer and mac up to 15 inches. Because it’s a TSA friendly backpack, you can simply send your backpack through security without the need of removing your laptop or anything from your backpack. The Timbuk2 Uptown completely folds out, making your security checks hassle free. The velcro protected laptop sleeve won’t let your laptop to slide out.

This rucksack is pretty comfortable, it has a ventilated back panel, which can be pretty handy, especially when it is summer. The strap design is not my personal favorite, but it’s certainly not bad.

It has a handle on each side, so you can kind of carry it around like a messenger bag if you want to.

On the downside, this backpack is pretty bulky, and heavy even when it is empty.

2. SwissGear Travel Gear 1900 – Airport Friendly Laptop Backpack for Travellers

If you have read the guide about the tibcos list of the top 10 17 inch laptop backpacks i made, the name SwissGear will sound familiar to you. Swissgear is a pretty well known and big name when it comes to travel gears. They literally produce and make everything that a traveler might need when backpacking trough their trips.

This bad boy can fit any laptop up to seventeen inch, and it’s lay flat technology what makes it totally TSA friendly. You just simply unzip the middle of the bag, lay it flat, and place it on the conveyor. It’s simple as that.

The SwissGear travel gear has everything that you might need when it comes to organizing your stuff. The multiple pockets on and inside the backpack helps you to keep track of everything you have placed inside. It has a dedicated pocket for your tablet and smaller peripherals.

The two pockets on the side of the bag allows you to carry two water bottles at the same time, which can come in pretty handy if you are on a longer trip.

This rucksack is pretty roomy and can hold a lot of stuff. Although it comes with a ton of space, it could use more smaller pockets for your medication, sunglasses.

3. Samsonite Pro 4 DLX Urban – The professional

Samsonite is the king of creating stylish laptop backpacks, and this airport friendly pack is gorgeous as well. It has a very clean, minimalistic design, yet its modern and can fit a lot of stuff. The leather finish on several spots of the bag really ads to the quality of the bag, makes it look like quality. If you want some approving looks on the airport, the Samsonite Pro 4 DLX Urban is a good choice.

The backpack is a pretty solid construction, but thanks to that it’s not light. In my opinion it’s not an issue, because i tend to carry around a lot of stuff already, so it does not make that much of a difference, but it might for someone who is used to smaller bags.

Although the Pro 4 seems small, it is surprisingly roomy. The zippered compartments make it very easy to open the bag at airport security checks, and the nylon material makes it elastic, yet durable.

Just like the SwissGear bag in the previous section, this bag has a lot of space and compartments as well. To be honest, this bag has even more.

The only thing that is missing from this backpack is the water bottle holders on the side of the backpack.

4. Alienware Awbp18 Orion Notebook Backpack – Checkpoint friendly for gamers

Are you a gamer, who travels a lot, and is sick and tired of slow airport checkpoints? Well, the beast backpack is going to be your best friend then. The Alienware Orion was purely made for gamers, it can hold any oversized, heavy gaming laptop up to 18.4 inches. Thanks to the flat layout of the bag, it is super easy to fit in even those big gaming laptops as well.

The Orion has a specific pocket for your gaming laptop, and in that same pocket there is a smaller zippered pocket where you can easily fit documents, CD, or any smaller item.

The middle zippered pocket of the bag is pretty big as well. It’s the same size as the laptop pocket, with a mesh zippered pocket, and a simple one. You can fit your USB Cooling pad here, your Ipad, tablet or even a smaller notebook might fit as well.

The third, last section has several smaller pockets, for your USB sticks, memory cards, or any smaller gear in general. These pockets are actually labeled, making finding your stuff easier.

The Orion is TSA Complaint, with scanfast, meaning you can simply leave your laptop in your backpack when going through security airport checks.

If you have a larger laptop that you carry around with yourself on trips, this backpack is a must-have.

5. Swiss Gear SA8733 – TSA Friendly Messenger Bag

I know, it’s not a backpack, but I had to include this messenger bag, because it’s so good quality and comes in very handy, when you only want to pack a few things, or don’t like backpacks.

Just as usual, SwissGear equals quality, and it really shows on this bag. The quality of the construction, the good zippers, the padding on the shoulder strap and the fabric material of the bag is high quality.

Despite it’s look, the Swiss Gear SA8733 has a lot of space. It can easily hold any laptop up to 15 inches, your textbooks or documents, while still leaving a lot of space to carry your stuff.

The messenger bag feels very good quality, feels like Swiss Gear is always aware of the material they make bags out of.

The bag has 5 pockets overall, including the one in the front. There is a big pouch for your laptop, and there are several other ones, with smaller pockets to help you keep your stuff organized.

The TSA Friendly name fits, because the bag is pretty easy to open and fold out.

The shoulder straps are pretty comfortable and padded, they are attached with two big hooks, that can be deattached if you want, so it’s pretty easy to remove the shoulder straps.

Although Swiss Gear does not say that this bag is waterproof, it’s pretty good. I walked with this bag trough heavy rainfall, and everything inside was totally dry and secure.

Although its a smaller bag, it’s got a little bit of weight, and if you don’t zip the bag correctly, your stuff can easily fall out.

Thanks to the great feedback we received to this post, we have decided to review the best laptops as well, that you can fit in these bags and are TSA friendly! Click here for the Tibco Approved 17 inch laptop list!

If you are a gamer, you know what it is like going through countless numbers of mice throughout the years of gaming. Some may wear out and get worse and worse by time, and there are occasions when you just simply bash it against your desk or even your wall enough times for it to not work anymore.

And this can happen to expensive mice as well, not only for the ones that are under 50$. After going through like 10 mouses over the course of 2 years, I finally made the decision to make a list of the 5 best budget gaming mouses that you can buy currently.

In this list, you will find several gaming mice that are under 50 and 30 dollars, with the same quality and attributes you would have with a high-end gaming mouse.

It does not matter, what game genre you are competing in, MOBA, RTS or even FPS, a mouse that is accurate and has a high sensitivity is a must. To get the best experience, you will have to choose a mouse that fits your hand and your gaming style. If you don’t choose this one properly, your hand may get tired easily, and your performance may be worse.

In this list, I am going to show you the best budget gaming mouses under 50$ that are currently out. I am going to break this list down into three sections, 50$, 30$, and 20$.

Don’t be fooled by the price, there are some awesome budget mice that you can use for any MOBA, like League Of Legends, or for any gaming genre, you would like. These mice were chosen very thoroughly, and every one of them was tested by me. If you are looking for a specific mouse for MMOs, and don’t mind spending more than 50$, then check out my MMO Gaming mouse list!

But if you have a tight budget, and want the best experience for your buck, here are the 5 mouses that I have chosen:

1. Corsair Gaming Sabre – Best FPS or MOBA Gaming Mouse Under 50

Our first budget mouse contender is from Corsair, a name I am sure you are familiar with. Corsair has a big name in the gaming mice industry, because of their awesome products. This cheap gaming mouse is completely lightweight, making it easier to handle, pick up, and from my experience, your hand does not get tired as fast, as it would with a heavier mouse.

This mouse is what every gamer dreams of. It’s lightweight, it has 8 programmable buttons, and an awesome 10000 DPI optical sensor, which makes it very accurate.

Want to have a mouse that resonates with your gaming keyboard? Don’t worry, the Sabre has a 16.8 million color backlighting, what you can configure with the CUE software that comes with the mouse.

This software is not only for making the mouse more pretty, but you can fine-tune the performance of it as well. This is where you can configure the eight buttons of the mouse as well.

Boom, boom, do you hear that a lot? Then you must be clicking a lot as well. Well, the Omron switches in this mouse are rated for 20 million clicks, but let’s say it does about 18’ish.

Honestly, if you are looking for a mouse under 50 dollars, buy this. This is the perfect budget mouse that you can use for MOBAs or FPS games.

2. Logitech G302 Daedalus Prime – The Best Cheap MOBA Gaming Mouse

If you are into mobas, you will be clicking even when you don’t have to. Waiting under a tower? Let’s click around, maybe do some funny glitches with your champion. But that is not the only moment when you need fast clicking. MOBA Players tend to click a lot when gaming, and that is what the Daedalus is an absolute king at, high-speed clicking.

If you are familiar with LoL, I am sure you heard about Team Solo Mid. This is the mouse that Wild Turtle uses, so you can guess, how good it is if a professional E-Sport player is playing with this mouse.

This budget gaming mouse has a metal spring tensioning button system, which makes your click feel more responsive, and not mushy like when you click with a normal, not gaming mouse.

If you are a casual player who does not always play MOBAs, but FPS games as well, this smaller mouse can be a great one to use. It literally goes with every game that requires fast clicking.

From the design, you can see that this budget mouse was not designed for playing MMOs, because it has only 6 programmable buttons, but it is more than enough for the game genres I have mentioned before. The Logitech G302 has an onboard memory, which means that every button customization is saved to that, so you don’t have to carry around a software, just to load them in.

There is an on-the-fly DPI button on the base of the mouse as well, where you can choose out of four settings, from 240 to 4000 DPI.

The Daedalus is very comfortable, and since it is lightweight your hand won’t feel tired even after gaming for long-long hours.

The mouse pulsates with a nice blue color, but you can’t set nor the color, nor the brightness, which is a bummer.

3. Corsair Harpoon – The Best Budget Gaming Mouse Under $30

I know what you are thinking right now… Corsair, again? Well, don’t blame me, blame Corsair for making good gaming mice at an affordable price.

When I first found this mouse, I had been using a very cheap wireless mouse for several years, and I got so tired of the weight of the mouse, and the process of changing the batteries, that I decided to look for a mouse, that I could use for both gaming and my projects.

I looked at reviews (No lists like this existed back then..) and found this mouse, that seemed for the most bang for my buck, while still carrying the properties and advantages of a high-end mouse.

This mouse is a smaller one, which made it very comfortable for me, but if you have a larger hand, it may be harder for you to get used to it, or you might not even find it comfortable.

Due to its low price point, the Harpoon is not specialized for any game types, it’s just a simply good budget gaming mouse. But apart from that, it has 6 fully customizable buttons, which isn’t too many, but it’s great if you are a casual gamer.

It has a very accurate 6000 DPI Optical sensor, with added advanced tracking. I pretty much used this mouse for everything, before buying a high-end mouse, and did not have any problem with the accuracy and sensitivity of it.

The rubberized sides give you a very nice and firm grip, so you don’t have to be afraid of losing the mouse while doing a big turn in CS:GO.

Whether you prefer having a claw grip, or a palm grip, the Corsair Harpoon will fit all of it.

If you are a simple user, who does not want to fiddle with performance settings, then the Harpoon is pretty much plug-and-play. The mouse has an onboard memory, with all of the best pre-configured settings on it. You don’t even have to install the software to change your DPI settings, because there is a button above the scroll, what you can use to change your DPI on-the-fly.

Since I’m a pretty technical person, it was not a hard thing to handle the UI of the software that comes with the mouse, but for everyday normal guys, it could be a little complicated. If you want a mouse that you can make turn pretty colors, this is not the one.

Speaking of which, there is currently no way to turn off the lights on the mouse, apart from when it is not powered. This is announced to be fixed in the next patch of the software, but we will see.

Overall, it is a pretty good mouse if you want to use it for casual gaming and everyday use.

4. Logitech G300s – An Affordable Gaming Mouse

Now I got to say, when I first saw this mouse, the overall design and shape of it was pretty strange until I realized that it is a genius because it can be used as a left handed mouse as well, thanks to its symmetrical design.

Logitech has been around for like forever. If you never had a Logitech office mouse before, you must be living under a rock or something. Jokes aside, they were and are very popular amongst gamers and office users as well.

If you have smaller hands and have problems pressing the buttons on the side of the mouse, where they are usually placed, this can be a very good alternative to try out. Since it’s a pretty strange place to place buttons, it takes a little practice to get used to them, but if you do, they can be a true game changer. They will definitely improve your game performance.

The G300s has nine programmable buttons, what you can configure with the awesome software that comes with it. The software has a nice design and very easy to use, even for a person who is not technical, but it would be better if it came with the mouse. If you want to get the software, you will have to search for it and download it off the internet.

Unfortunately, there are no manuals in the package that tells you how or where to download the software itself.

The odd shape of the mouse is pretty easy to get used to and not unpleasant at all, and it comes with a super long cord, so if you have a laptop or a portable device, you might need to think about tying that somehow.

The Logitech G300s is not a weighted mouse, which makes it easy to drop to the floor, but on the other side, it is very durable. But don’t use it to beat up your friend/roommate, I don’t think it’s THAT durable.

The mouse has an onboard memory, where you can store 3 profiles, which is great for this price, and you can even set the lighting according to the certain profiles, to make sure you know what profile you are using currently.

If you want to have the best budget gaming experience with this mouse, I would recommend you purchase a gaming mouse pad as well.

5. Redragon M601 – The most affordable budget gaming mouse under $20

We have arrived at the last mouse on our list. I was honestly amazed what this budget gaming mouse can give you for less than $20.

The mouse itself looks very great, it has an aggressive red look and the LED lighting on the back of the mouse,  adds a very cool effect to it.

The weight of the mouse is perfect, and… AND! It has an adjustable weight system. That’s right, you’ve read that right, you can literally take out or add in more weight ’till you find the one setting that you like. If you ask me, for a gaming mouse under $20, that is a very cool thing to have.

It has a great grip, you won’t have any problems making very small movements with it. But that alone does not do the wonder, the M601 has a 3200 DPI laser sensor, what might not seem too much, but when you are using the mouse, you will see that it is very accurate.

Of course, the DPI level of the mouse is adjustable, with an on-fly button on the mouse, you can choose out of four levels.

The mouse has 6 buttons, of which 5 are programmable, and with the given software, you can store up to 5 memory profiles.

The buttons have a very cool “clicky” feeling, although the are not mechanical, which is a great addon. I hate when buttons are “mushy”, but I did not have this issue with this mouse.

It comes with a braided cable as well.

The mouse wheel has an awesome rubber coating on it, which makes it easier to use and scroll.

Honestly, if you are looking for a great mouse, that is under 20$, I would go with this mouse. Don’t expect high build quality and awesome software, but for this price, this mouse does everything it is supposed to do!

Should you buy a budget gaming mouse under $10?

Honestly? Don’t. There are several “gaming” mouses listed on Ebay, or Alibaba for less than 5 dollars, but it is always too good to be true. These are often made from very cheap plastic, have smushy buttons, and have issues very soon after buying.

One of my friends decided to buy one from Alibaba, and when he turned it on, he was amazed. Somehow, the mouse was reversed! When he slid the mouse left, the cursor went right, when he slid the mouse up, it went down. Well, that is what you get for five dollars.

Conclusions

If you don’t want to spend 75-100 dollars on a mouse, there are some very good budget gaming mouses out there, that you can buy. Just simply choose one out of my list, I can assure you, it won’t let you down, for the price.

Want to to pair your budget mouse with a 17 inch budget laptop? Check out our new list, where you can find several laptops that will surely meet your needs!

Thomas Tibco

My obsession in taking things apart and putting them back together started when i was a kid and i immediately fell in love with technology. I love reviewing stuff, plus I love getting free stuff from companies. Want to read before you buy? You are at the right place..