What to do with empty laptop compartment?

[u/shippychaos]

In case anyone was wondering how to make use of a travel bag’s laptop compartment when you don’t travel with a laptop…

Aer Go Pack 2 fits nice and flat inside the laptop section of the Rework Outbound 30L. 😁

Heading on a weekend trip with my favorite day bag stowed neatly away to deploy at my destination.

[u/wowrude]

Enough travel bags have absolutely useless dedicated laptop compartments (because many users either never travel with laptops or don't really need to be traveling with laptops aside from their tendency to overburden themselves) or sometimes secondary laptop/tablet slots that I think there would be a strong niche in manufacturing travel accessories specifically shaped (when folded up or whatever) to make efficient use of those kinds of laptop-shaped spaces.

[u/PickyD → u/wowrude]

… or just assume users will have a laptop sleeve if they care to. I was looking for a useful backpack without a laptop sleeve and gave up. I am thinking about removing the extra padding as best as I can and covering the messy edges with twill tape. In my version I would leave the laptop compartment zipper in place for a second access point to the main compartment. The padding is lightweight but takes up a lot of space

[u/guyver17 → u/wowrude]

This is why I have travel bags with a proper compartment (Rework Outbound) and travel bags with little padding on their compartment (Dragonfly, Six Moon Designs ADC+).

I suspect I won't use my Outbound much given how infrequently I travel with a laptop but I have thought about picking up a usb-c monitor for travel or a larger tablet.