Minor correction - I placed an order for a Marty briefcase, but it turns out that all the Marty’s were out of stock so the helpful folks at Olpr offered me a Randy briefcase in camel plus a slight discount for the hassle. The major difference is that the Marty has two exterior side by side pockets, where the Randy has a large front pocket. I’d been shopping for a waxed canvas briefcase that wasn’t $300+, and what I was finding was underwhelming to say the least, and most wouldn’t fit anything bigger than a 13in laptop. The Marty (and Randy) are both big enough to put up to 16in laptops in, they have a dedicated and lightly padded laptop section, then a main compartment with a couple small pockets, a pen divider, and a small zippered pocket ideal for smaller items or things roughly the size of a large cell phone. The outside front pocket is roughly as wide and tall as the bag itself, and is lined, it holds all my cords and cables and chargers and doesn’t bulge out much at all. I slightly preferred the Marty’s outside smaller pockets, as they’d have been a better fit for all the cables and stuff I have, but the Randy is fine as long as you don’t stuff the front pocket with too much.
The zippers are smooth and very solid feeling, the leather accents are thick and quality, and the waxed canvas is heavily waxed and is fairly rigid without being too obnoxious. The shoulder strap is adjustable and comfortable with moderate loads, it doesn’t have a lot of padding so if you put a heavy load in, it might be a tad uncomfortable for long periods of carry, but probably not that bad.
The only area of the Randy that I don’t care too much for is on the back of the bag. There is a passthrough that you can put your bag on the handle of your luggage or pullman, which is a nice feature. A bit hard to describe, but the Randy has the passthrough with a magnetic closure at the top and a zipper at the bottom so the passthrough can be used as a pocket. The downside of this: The zipper is at the bottom of the bag, so if you drop this bag on a wooden table or something finished, it can and will scratch the surface. Also, if the bottom zipper somehow comes unzipped while you have items in it, they probably will fall out unbeknownst to you. You could probably safety pin the zipper to avoid this, but for know I’ve left mine as-is, but put a small piece of electrical tape over the zipper pull to keep it from scratching things. It’s not a big deal as long as you’re aware of this, and since it doesn’t really bother me, nor does it detract from the overall quality of this bag, I’m happily giving it 5 stars.
I love Olpr products, I have two folios that I’ve owned for about 4 years, and they’ve held up well, developed a nice patina, and I constantly get compliments on them. More importantly, everything from Olpr is priced much better than competitor items, and with great quality and construction. This bag (and presumably the Marty) are great values and hold plenty of stuff. Olpr does it again.
