First Look: 3 Ways to Cushion Your MacBook from Life's Hard Knocks
Posted 06/06/2007 at 10:57am
| by Leslie Ayers
be.ez LArobe Color
Notebook sleeves and bags from French company be.ez are unique in more than just their kooky product names. The LArobe sleeve ($29.99) comes in sizes that fit 12- and 14-inch iBooks; 12-, 15-, and 17-inch PowerBooks; 13- and 15-inch MacBooks; and 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros. It's made of low-resilience polyurethane, which means it behaves a little like memory foam that "forgets" in about five minutes. In other words: If you press on the outside of the LArobe sleeve, your fingers leave marks. Come back to it a few minutes later and the indentations are gone. We can't really explain the significance of this behavior, but it makes it fun to play with. Kind of like popping bubble wrap.

Amuse yourself during boring meetings making press-on patterns on the side of your notebook sleeve.
The LArobe sleeve loads horizontally, so it's better for those who carry messenger-style bags - at least if you want to be able to access your notebook without removing the sleeve from the bag first. The heavy-duty dual zipper opens and closes smoothly and is a bit less noisy than the zipper on the Built sleeve. LArobe sleeves come a variety of color schemes, too, making it easy to find one you like.

The French do fashion. And now they do sleeves for Mac notebooks too.