Sometimes gaming gear comes from the most unlikely of places. One of those places is from a company normally known for is cleaning and safety products. Falcon Safety Products, makers of the well know Dust-Off compressed air cans, has introduced an interesting gaming accessory that will keep your gaming gear safe in transport. They call it a Keyboard Quiver.
Unlike the leather satchels used by archers of yore to hold their arrows, this one is updated for the digital world. Constructed of heavy-duty cotton canvas, this sling pack is built to hold everything a gamer could need. There’s protected storage for what Falcon calls “the essential tools of the gaming trade,” which includes a keyboard, mouse, headphones, cables, power cords and even MP3 players.
Falcon came up with the cross section of computer hardware, and the resulting bag design, after observing the behaviours and interactions of the participants of LAN Party or gaming event participants. They noticed that to carry their peripherals, gamers used a variety of methods. These varied from simply loading ones arms to the point of exhaustion, to grocery bags and backpacks that were entirely too small, to the box that a peripheral originally came in. Falcon saw this as a bad thing, since this wasn’t the safest or easiest way to carry one’s peripherals and keep them protected. They looked at it from the standpoint that these aren’t throw away devices; these are singular tools a gamer uses to ply his trade, and would need to be kept from being damaged. That’s where the Keyboard Quiver comes in.
Measuring 21″ x 12″ x 6″, the Keyboard Quiver is much bigger than the average backpack. This facilitates being able to carry a full size keyboard without any of it sticking out. As for the pack itself, it’s a single strap sling pack that can be worn on the left or right shoulder. This pack is designed for the “active gamer,” whatever that means, though I take it to mean anyone that actually gets out of their chair to walk around. As such, both the strap and the pack are padded for comfort and durability. Upon release back in October the Keyboard Quiver sold for $69.99 USD, which in my opinion was a little steep. Recently a price reduction was announced, and this bag can now be found for as low as $45 USD, which is somewhat more palpable. That being said, we still need to find out if the Dust-Off Keyboard Quiver is worth the price of admission.
Quit Playing With Your Pockets
To hold the amount of gadgets and peripherals that the Keyboard Quiver claims it can hold, it’ll of course need a great deal of pockets and pouches. Once we’ve taken a look at how this bag is built, I’m going to see exactly how much stuff you can…stuff in it.
The main pocket is where you would strap in your keyboard. You can also wedge in a power bar, cables, and whatever else won’t fit in the many surrounding pockets. It should be noted that if you’re keyboard is too large, it will not fit in this area. I’ll have more on that later. As for the little pocket in the left of the picture, that’s the pocket to store your portable music player in.
This MP3 player pocket ends up at the top of the Keyboard Quiver once it’s slung over your back. There is cable routing hole for your headphones or wired remote. Be aware that this is for MP3 players only, and once again, only of a certain size. My 5th generation iPod fit fine, but there are players out there that are bigger. If you are still rocking a portable CD player, maybe you should upgrade. Besides it definitely will not fit in the Keyboard Quiver’s music pocket.
The inside of the flap for the main compartment of course has more storage; mostly meant to carry smaller objects. The mesh pocket at the top can be used to hold a disc envelope, cables, or a portable gaming system. The lower slots are for holding individual CDs, though I found it rather problematic to actually get discs into these slots. They also aren’t well protected, which means they could scratch your discs from frequent removal. In future revisions, I would recommend that they use some of the same material that they use for their screen shammies. As for the middle straps, they are of course meant to hold cans of Dust-Off spray. You can hold two Juniors, or one XL. You can also strap in energy drinks, or anything else that won’t fall out of the straps.
Once you have loaded up the main compartment and squeezed it shut, you can continue to stuff more gaming gear in the external pockets. There’s a small pocket near the top of the bag where you can place your mouse, or anything else that’s diminutive in size.
Further down there’s a large main pocket, useful for stowing CD catalogues, tools, more cables, and anything else that might have been missed. This pocket is also expandable. Overall the Keyboard Quiver should be able to be loaded with a great deal of gear.
Active Gamer?
While on the move, I found this bag to be rather comfortable. The padding made carrying around all my gear less of a chore. You may chuckle at it, but at full load this bag weighed a decent amount, which may fatigue less active gamers I reckon.
That being said, I’m also 6 feet tall (no the picture isn’t me). This bag is rather tall, and might be cumbersome to someone of a small stature. Still I found the Keyboard Quiver to be no better or worse then some of the better laptop backpacks I’ve used, whether it was packed to the brim or only carrying a few gadgets.
Let’s Load It Up
So how much gaming gear can the Keyboard Quiver hold exactly? And exactly what can one fit into its myriad of pockets? Well now it’s time to find out. I decided to compile what I would most like to take with me to a LAN party. I don’t have a typical load out, because honestly with the amount of gear I have coming and going, things change every year. Let’s just say I’m very adaptive when it comes to my gaming peripherals. That being said there’s one peripheral I can’t live without, but may have to learn to if I wish to use the Keyboard Quiver.
My first generation Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard is like an extension of my mind in not only a few games, but in Photoshop and Premier. The huge selection of macro keys make for some very interesting combos in my favourite games, as well as make my time in Photoshop more efficient and less painful. Alas if I wish to use the keyboard Quiver to carry my gear to my local LAN, I have to go with a smaller keyboard as the G15 is too wide. I should note that if you own a second generation G15, you will faire much better. It’s not as wide, and will fit fine.
Once I decided on which keyboard would take the place of my coveted G15, I proceeded to collect all those things I have taken, or will be taking, with me to my next LAN event. Some products (like the Sidewinder) are just representations of what I would actually take. The list breaks down something like this:
- Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard
- Microsoft Sidewinder Gaming Mouse
- Logitech Extreme PC Gaming Headset
- Apple iPod 5th Gen 30GB w/ wired radio remote
- 24-disc CD binder
- Tool set
- Canon SD1000 Digital Camera w/ USB cable
- Extra thermal paste
- A pen, power and misc cables
Not bad. Not bad at all I would say. It did take some finagling to get everything into the Keyboard Quiver, but once I had everything in it wasn’t going anywhere.
The two outer pockets were really handy for cables and small peripherals. Unfortunately there wasn’t anywhere I could put a large CD binder, and as I mentioned the CD folders on the inside of the main compartment don’t quite fit a standard CD. Overall I would say that the Keyboard Quiver works as intended, but you do need to be aware of what you want to carry and whether it’ll fit or not.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
There are very few faults with Falcon’s Dust-Off Keyboard Quiver. The bag itself is well built using high quality material that should last through a great deal of punishment. The design is fairly well thought out, and can compensate for the size and shape of most gaming gear. It doesn’t even look all that bad, that is if you roll with the gamer-geek crowd.
The Keyboard Quiver isn’t without its faults though. Most of those faults relate to the size of its compartments. First and foremost is the fact that you can not fit a first generation Logitech G15 into this bag. That is rectified with the second generation G15, but there are still a large amount of gamers out there still rocking out on the original G15. Also anything bigger than an iPod may have problems fitting into the media player pocket. The outside pockets are somewhat skimpy, but you can work with them.
In the end, I can still say that the Keyboard Quiver is something that both real and aspiring professional gamers can get a great deal of use out of. As long as you aren’t a clingy G15 owner, you will be able to fit most everything you need into this pack. This should reduce the total load you need to portage to your local LAN in addition to your system, monitor, and this bag fully loaded. Upon release there were some concerns about price. Many found $69.99 USD to be a little steep. I would have agreed. However, a price reduction has been announced, and you should be able to find the Dust-Off Keyboard Quiver for about $45 USD. That makes it cheaper then many standard sized back packs that may have the same accoutrement, and those products can’t completely swallow a keyboard. This makes the Dust-Off Keyboard Quiver a proud recipient of both our Value Added award, and a Futurelooks recommendation.
The Good
- Tough construction
- Well though out design
- Keeps peripherals motionless and secure
- Comfortable, even under full load
- Cheaper than similar normal backpacks
The Bad
- Too small to fit the popular first gen Logitech G15
- Media player pocket too small for anything bigger then an iPod
Overall Rating: 8.0/10.0
Help us improve our reviews! Leave a comment below!