3. Product Packaging: And Now For The Gore

OK, I've protected you long enough. Let's get down to the stuff that Freddy Kruger movies are made of.

We're going to be looking at a bunch of neat mobile computer accessories toward the end of this month. So, I've been inundated with a slew of this stuff. The picture below shows Targus's Defcon CL Armor Combo Cable Lock. It's designed to protect a notebook computer from theft. It's about the heftiest security lock I've ever seen. I mean look at that cable. I'd be quite comfortable locking my bike to a rack with it or even pulling a Hummer with an RV using a couple of them. This is the ... well, Defcon of all notebook lock down devices.

However, you'll notice the lock is still in the packaging it came in. A look at the back will tell you why. This is one of those cut-me-if-you-can packages. Basically, you have to cut through two rather thick layers of plastic to liberate the lock from its packaging. To make things worse, the package is fused all the way around and you have to follow curvy contours while cutting. All of this can be, as most of you I'm sure know, a royal f'ing nightmare. It's not something you do without solid spiritual preparation: meditation, prayer, running over burning coals or whatever your personal preference might be.

Take a look at some of the descriptive text on the back of the packaging. "Double steel layer protection" "Extreme cut resistance" Are these claims about the product inside or the packaging?

Anyway, fear not, soon, after donning thick gloves and protective eyewear, I will open the package, remove the lock and check it out. My mini-review will be ready for publication later this month. Only you will know the fear and trepidation with which I faced the coming out party of Targus's Defcon CL Armor Combo Cable Lock.

Update August 11, 2006: A number of you, in a number of ways both nice and nasty have told me about the perforations on the back of the Targus Defcon lock package. You can pull open a rectangular door and then pull the lock out of the packaging. Two things here: First, it's amazing how a little conditioning from all the open-me-if-you-can packaging I've struggled with in my life blinded me to the perforations. Second, once that rectangular door is open, there are a number of ways you might cut your fingers or hands trying to get a round object through a rectangular door with its little serrations here and there. Oh yes, you do pretty much have to destroy all of the inner cardboard packaging to get to the lock. I and a number of you wondered if a store or the manufacturer would take back a product with torn and tattered internal packaging.