Porter Case Standard Review

Overall 5.00 of 5 (by 1 user)

add to my favorites email to a friend view more Luggage Reviews

Publisher's Circle

bkovacs
Annandale, VA

add bkovacs to my friends list

On a roll with Porter Case

an occasional traveler, always carrying electronics, a fast walker

Pros

big smooth wheels, strong hardware, doubles as a hand truck, movable internal dividers

Cons

a little small

AUG

2007

Porter Case manufactures mostly small, hard-sided luggage with interesting features for travelers in general and features that will really appeal to travelers carrying electronic equipment. If you are traveling with a laptop computer, video camera, still-image camera and other electronic toys, Porter Case is a very good choice to protect and transport your expensive gizmos and all their accessories.

Porter Case makes two similarly designed cases: the Standard Series and the Elite, the latter of which is the smaller of the two. Both are equipped with large wheels and an extendable carrying handle. I own the Standard Series Photo Plus case, which is a version of the Standard equipped with customizable interior dividers that make protecting equipment easy. In addition to carrying my necessary electronic doo-dads, I simultaneously use my Porter Case suitcase to carry various items of clothing... especially those things that easily pack around the electronic stuff. The Porter Case Standard has a list price today of $291, and it costs more with optional dividers and other interior treatments.

The exterior of the Porter Case Standard is 22x14x8 inches and is designed to meet airline requirements for carry-on luggage. The available interior space is 21.5x13.5x7 inches and is finished with firm foam padding, flaps, pouches and some conveniently placed fabric. When you see the case, your first impression is that the wheels are on the wrong side. That's because the extendable handle can be released and realigned to turn a simple wheeled suitcase into a hand truck of considerable capacity. The padded handle formed with two heavy telescoping pipes can be extended from the body to provide a sturdy grip for rolling or lifting the case. There is a more traditional carrying handle on the same side as the latches and lock.

Rolling suitcases are nothing special but the Porter Case Standard has one more trick up its handle grip: By releasing the gray catches, the handle pivots away from the case and ultimately latches into metal notches by the wheels, turning the rather ordinary-looking suitcase into a hand truck. Somebody stayed up really late at night thinking of this design. I have rolled easily through airports will all my luggage piled on top of the Porter Case Standard... nice!

My Porter Case Standard came with 15 removable dividers that use hook-and-loop fasteners to form compartments of just about any shape and variety.

I took the Standard on several airline trips, packing it with electronic items such as a laptop computer, assorted external drives for the computer, a digital camera and a little audio cassette recorder. There were plenty of pouches for the necessary cables, disks, batteries, chargers and miscellaneous doodads, with space left over for some socks and small clothing items. I packed these around my electronic items to provide additional padding, although the case's interior is already well-padded. I figured that you can't get enough cushioning for stuff like this.

I wouldn't call the interior capacious, but it is certainly capable of holding the items I put into it, with room to spare. Any consumer-sized video camcorder will fit easily and the hook-and-loop dividers make it easy to create partitions to hold precious items in their own compartments. The completely adjustable interior dividers provided ample padding and support for my electronics. In fact, there were so many dividers that I left about half of them home.

This is a nice wheeled suitcase but its real trick is doubling as a hand truck. I recommend the Porter Case Standard as good, tough, flexible, wheeled protection for your expensive toys when you travel.

Last edited on Aug 21, 2007