It’s time to take a closer look at the new Aer City MacBook Tote bag that launched for the first time a couple weeks ago. It came alongside the brand’s new Dopp Kit 3 and just after we reviewed its Travel Pack 3 as the latest addition to the brand’s City collection. Designed as an all-in-one universal tote bag, it cradles your MacBook and iPad alongside whatever else you might need to lug around or pick up while running errands. While I was a big fan of its Day Sling 3 – it quickly landed in our roundup of the best sling packs out there – it’s time to put the new City MacBook Tote bag through its paces for review as part of the latest Tested with 9to5Toys feature.
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Hitting the streets with Aer’s new City MacBook Tote bag
The new Aer City Tote features the 1680D Cordura ballistic nylon exterior construction we are used to from the brand alongside YKK zippers and a “soft woven lining for a premium look and feel.” Covered in exterior loops for carabiner clips and accommodating other pieces of EDC, it also sports a luggage strap to passthrough the telescoping handle on your carry-on along with side water bottle pockets, and more.
On the inside, the spacious main compartment is flanked with additional accessory pouches, a zipper pocket, and a suspended double MacBook and iPad section, complete with a softer plushy lining.
The City Tote is the essential everyday tote bag designed for the city. It features a classic yet sleek silhouette, smart organization for all your essentials, and quick-access pockets that keep your gear within reach.
The new Aer City Tote is now available for purchase in black or heather gray for $129 shipped.
Here’s a closer look at the specs:
- 1680D Cordura ballistic nylon exterior (bluesign approved)
- YKK zippers
- Soft woven lining for a premium look and feel (bluesign approved)
- Spacious main compartment for your everyday essentials
- Padded and suspended laptop pocket with soft lining (fits up to 16” laptop)
- Slip pocket for documents or tablet
- Interior zippered pocket and stash pockets for organization
- Side water bottle pockets
- Exterior loops for attaching gear or accessories
- Quick-access back pocket for small items
- Luggage handle pass-through
9to5Toys’ Take
Aer’s City MacBook Tote is once again delivering a solid build quality made from the same materials we tested in our reviews of its Travel Pack 3 and Day Sling 3 reviews. The Cordura ballistic nylon presents a thick and yet not overly cumbersome and heavy exterior that looks nice, can take a bit of beating, and, in this case, supports just enough organization potential.
On both sides, you’ll find water bottle-ready pockets joined by a small zippered compartment on the back and a sort of vertical zippered pocket on the front – this is a nice aesthetic design touch for me, but in some cases it has felt like it would have been more practical to have a traditional horizontal option here.
The outside of the bag is also loaded with small loops. Six to be exact – two along the top, an extra one on the bottom of the bag, and another on the sort of zippered flap that closes the main compartment. Keys, other accessories, sunglasses, smaller bags, and anything you might want hanging from a carabiner clip can all easily be attached to the bag. Not something I would use very often for fear of losing my gear, but with a good carabiner clip everything remains relatively safe and some folks swear by these things. Aer has also added one of those handy luggage pass-through straps to the mix as well.
The inside boasts a pair of slip pockets – one larger with a plushy interior for your MacBook and slightly smaller one for a tablet or notebook – secured shut with a sort of pull-over velcro strap. You’ll also find a pair of elastic-top compartments for chargers and larger accessories as well as a smaller zippered pocket for more smaller accessories. They certainly could have have fit a few more smaller organizational pockets in here, but the larger main storage area has come in handy thus far and seems to be the whole point of this bag for me.
While I for one am not really the type to carry a MacBook around in a tote bag like this very often, you certainly can. It makes for a nice and quick over-the-shoulder vessel for your Apple laptop and other daily carry, whether you’re headed to the gym, work, or otherwise – some folks might even want to travel with it and you certainly can. But the Aer City Tote quickly started to become my go-to grocery and errand hauler.
Maybe it’s just me, but it looks and feels a lot like a heavy-duty, higher-quality, and high-end reusable shopping bag you get from grocery and retail stores. The kind that has now (mostly) phased out those environmentally-disastrous plastic shopping bags. The outer zipper compartments mentioned above, as well the water bottle holders have quickly become supplementary bonus compartments in what has been my favorite new goods hauler. I can get a substantial number of food items, alongside a pharmacy run, and more in here in one go.
Anyone who knows my reviews of, well, anything, also knows how much I despise (most) over-bearing branding and logos. And I hate carrying reusable shopping bags (or almost anything really) littered with them. Aer has once again employed a tasteful and relatively small tag bearing its mark and it is a joy to use this bag instead of something that has the name of the last grocery store you forgot to bring a bag to on it. I guess this is really more of a personal thing, it’s frankly no big deal to carry around branded retail bags, but considering how many applications the City Tote works for and how often I need a reusable bag of this nature, I’m ready to upgrade to something more permanent.
It’s not a designer purse, it’s not a business-forward messenger bag, nor is it a backpack, but it can be just about everything else. If you’re the type to lug around a tote bag like this, and don’t require a more whimsical or purse-like material treatment, Aer’s new City MacBook Tote is certainly worth consideration. It makes for a great all purpose carrier that can take you from the gym to the grocery store to the mall, provide enough space for all of it, and be at the ready for years to come.
Buy Aer City MacBook Tote
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