What’s inside our Gadget/Blogging Gear?

In our work as a tech blogger, we always travel abroad to cover the biggest product launches, exhibitions and conferences so it’s important that we have a good and complete set of gears to carry along.

And we’re also often asked what’s inside our gear bag? So here’s one of those rare times we’re giving you a peek inside.

I use different kinds of bags depending on the event, location and the duration. When going to international trips, I tend to carry a bigger one. The last one I used was a Wenger backpack but I found it didn’t have enough room to store the additional devices I have.

Last December, I got a new one which is more conservative but has the features that I need. Found it after attending the opening of the InCase Concept Store at SM Aura so I bought one (around Php7k if I remember correctly).

The InCase City Backback looks plain and simple from the outside but it has a total of 7 pockets in the exterior alone — 2 large pockets from the top, one for a 13-15 inch laptop and charger compartment and another big pocket for tablets and accessories lined with 5 inner mesh pockets; the 3rd pocket is a shallow one and lined with suede, used to store a couple of phones and delicate items.

The 4th front pocket is deep and has smaller compartments and inside pockets as well — great for storing cables, powerbanks, documents and pens. The 5th one is found on the lower front corner and as shallow as the 3rd one.

There are 2 more side pockets at the bottom corner that are very small so I have not found any use for them yet.

For our trip to the US on a back-to-back coverage of CES 2014 in Las Vegas and the North American Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, here are the stuff I brought with me:

* Acer Aspire S7 13″
* iPad Mini Retina Display
* Nexus 7 2013
* Lenovo Miix 2 8
* Canon EOS M
* Go Pro Hero3+
* Sony HDR CX380
* 2TB Western Digital My Passport Ultra
* Logitech Gaming Mouse
* Logitech Pocket Wireless Mouse
* Logitech Wireless Keyboard
* LTE Pocket WiFi
* Sony NFC Speakers
* NVidia Shield
* Power Banks
* Canon EX580 flash

You can never have enough power banks with you so I have a total of around 35,000mAh of stored power. I didn’t count the phones that I always carry all the time (Lumia 1520, HTC One, LG G2).

The wireless keyboard and mouse is for the Windows 8.1 tablet. With around 8 hours of battery life, it can be a good backup laptop. The two other tablets might seem overkill but if you are on a 16 hour flight (plus 3 hours waiting time), you’d really drain the batteries out of them quickly, trust me.

I have a few other smaller stuff inside the pockets like an EyeFi card, half a dozen Sandisk SD cards, card reader, HMDI cable, portable WiFi router, 5-meter extension cord, rechargeable batteries, and lots of cables.

In the many years that we travel, we learned that redundancy can be a curse and a blessing. A curse because it adds up weight to the bag we carry and a blessing because you know you have backup. That means we can be ready with whatever scenario we’re faced — a 13 hour flight, 4-hour drive, 3-hour live blog and sometimes 8-10 hours of coverage with no decent access to internet or no power outlet. This is especially useful when we do some live blogging where we have 3 or 4 different devices connected (or trying to connect) to 4 different WiFi or mobile internet.

Of course, we shave them off once we arrive at our hotel room. Some stuff stay at the hotel while others take turns on shifts depending on the schedule.