Daily deal – Burton Entourage Insulated Jacket for $99

by Scott Carmichael on

Still freezing your backside off? Unless that damn Groundhog tells us that winter will be over within the next week, my deal for today could come in quite handy for those in cold climates (or those that enjoy wintersports).

The Burton Entourage Insulated Jacket is currently on clearance at REI.com for just $99.93. The jacket is available in 3 sizes, and 3 different colors.

The jacket has a long list of features, including a “jacket to pants interface”, which is a snazzy way of saying it has a neat way of keeping snow out of your butt when you fall off your board.

If you live near an REI store, then you can select free site to store shipping, otherwise you’ll pay $10 for shipping to your house.

While you are there, check out some of the other deals on the REI site, especially now winter is (very) slowly coming to an end, you’ll start seeing more and more winter gear go on sale. As always with deals like this, the longer you wait, the less inventory will be left, so don’t wait too long.

Gadling Gear Review: Arc’teryx Atlas AR Jacket

by Grant Martin on

Nothing is more important in your adventure travel than packing the correct gear for the job. Whether this is the right set of cams for a pitch through Joshua Tree or a comfortable pair of all purpose shoes for exploring Venice, the wrong gear can drastically affect the way you travel and ultimately can make or break a trip.

Skiing, in particular is a sensitive topic for me. Having spent each winter on a different hill for the past dozen years, I’ve always struggled to find the right gear to keep me warm – keep my fingers and toes correctly insulated, my face dry and my head covered, and I’ve constantly been let down by the performance of my gear.

Four years ago I finally found a system that worked well for me in the Salomon Advanced Skin line of jackets, a two part series that is extremely waterproof and just as warm to boot.

Technology has advanced, since then, however, and on a recent ski excursion to Snowbird in Salt Lake City I decided to take a look at the newest state of the art. Arc’teryx’s Atlas AR jacket, their top of the line insulated mountainside system was where I started

Key requirements? It needed to be lightweight, warm and waterproof. But with technology as advanced as it is today, all jackets should have these features, right? So I’ll take a look through some of the finer details of the jacket, what takes the technology above and beyond the competition, what areas I’d like to see improved and explain what justifies the $400 price tag.
Among adventure gear brands, Arc’teryx has long had a reputation as one of the best designers and manufacturers. Zippers are taped and seamed, and zippers are well and thoughtfully built to be waterproof and not invasive. So regardless of how much snow or sleet you splash onto them they won’t let in moisture. The Atlas AR is no exception, with two hip pockets, a left sternum pocket, two inner compartments and a left arm pocket.

Outside, the jacket is large and well styled with smooth Gore Windstopper material on the outer faces. At 6’3″, the Large was almost too long for me, although I suppose that’s important for keeping snow out of your pants when you wipe out. The tall collar has a zippered compartment from which a hood can be extracted, adding an additional layer if conditions are hazardous, but this also limits your side-to-side visibility, so if you’re bombing down the mountainside you probably want to keep this down.

Inside, the waterproof shell is insulated with lightweight, PrimaLoft media. This means that you get the waterproof, lightweight benefits of a regular shell but you also have insulation inside of the jacket so that you don’t need an extra fleece layer. It also means that you’re going to be warm on the mountainside. With the weather at about 30 degrees I wore a base layer, long sleeve t-shirt and sweater underneath my Atlas AR jacket, and by the time I reached the chair lift I was roasting.

It’s misleading in a way, because the jacket is so light and compactable, but that little amount of insulation in the jacket goes a long, long way.

It’s also got a standard powder skirt, draw strings at the waist and nifty sleeve skirts for wrists so that you don’t get snow up your arms.

One interesting feature of the jacket is the Recco avalanche beacon. A small black patch on your upper right arm is where the passive beacon sits, and in case of any emergencies, anyone (presumably, the ski patrol) with a Recco detector should be able to find you under the snow by tracking this beacon. Pretty cool, if you’re skiing in avalanche zones, but probably not necessary if you’re riding on the paltry hills of the Midwest. Unfortunately, I was not able to test the Recco avalanche beacon.

Taking the jacket down the hill, the first thing that you’ll probably notice about the Atlas AR is how windproof it is. If you tuck your face into the tall collar, you can barely feel an external effects on your body, and I took more than one run in this manner.

The tall collar is great for this use, but with it in close proximity to your mouth, it does tend to build up moisture and if your neck is small like mine, it’ll scoop up snow pretty quickly while you’re tomahawking down the hill. Many jackets have a felt or cloth material right at the collar to keep your face warm and dry, but the Atlas AR doesn’t have this. Any resulting moisture around your neck area will therefore just bleed down the inside front of the jacket.

This can be a bit of a concern if you’re carrying your phone or camera on the inside of your jacket. I usually keep my electronics inside of my jacket or well positioned in case (when) I fall, but I found that the outside pockets were in sensitive places and the inside pockets were moist, so I ended up keeping most of my equipment in my jeans. Comparatively, in my Solomon jacket there is an external clavicle pocket where I tend to keep my camera.

Otherwise, the jacket performed well on and off the hill, keeping me warm, away from wind, and providing a wealth of places to store gear. Oh and on top of that, it looks great. Even though my demo model was Oscar-the-Grouch-green, I got a lot of compliments.

Would I buy one? Maybe not for the $400 off the shelf, but if it was a good price at the end of the season I would seriously consider it.

Gadling’s 10 days of gadget giveaways – day 6 – SeV Evolution jacket

by Scott Carmichael on

Welcome to day 6 of Gadling’s 10 days of gadget giveaways. Today’s prize is for an SeV Evolution jacket (or a $150 gift certificate to the SeV store).

The SeV Quantum jacket was recently featured as one of the best travel technology products of 2008 in our top 25 lineup.

The SeV store has a large variety of items, from iPod friendly T-Shirts to their 2-in-1 Q5 ski system featuring over 50 pockets!

Don’t forget to enter our previous giveaways, and to come back later this week to enter the remaining 4!

  • To enter this contest, simply leave a comment below telling us about your favorite piece of clothing to travel in.

  • The comment must be left before Monday December 1st 2008 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time.
  • You may enter only once.
  • One Prize Winner will be randomly selected to receive an SeV Evolution jacket or a $150 gift certificate for the SeV store.
  • Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
  • The total value of this prize is $150.
  • Click here for the complete official rules of this giveaway.

Product review – Scottevest “Scott Jordan Signature System” jacket and fleece

by Scott Carmichael on

Let me open by apologizing if this review seems messy; I’m more used to reviewing products with lights, buttons and beeping noises.

Reviewing fashion isn’t really “my thing”, but I had no problem making an exception for this review.

The SeV Scott Jordan Signature System consists of 2 different products; the Quantum jacket, and the Fleece 5.0.

Scottevest (SeV) has been making “technology enabled clothing” since 2000, and their products are essentially a travelers best friend; plenty of pockets, innovative ways to store anything from a water bottle to a small laptop, and high quality fabrics and stitching.

I’ll break this review into 2 small portions and will start with the jacket. Each product is available separately and functions perfectly on its own, but if you are heading towards a really cold winter, you can combine both into the “Signature System”. The Jacket and Fleece do not connect together, which was a decision SeV made based on customer feedback (I have to agree with them here).

The new SeV Quantum Jacket

The Quantum jacket is the fifth generation jacket from SeV and combines all their experience and innovations into a rugged winter coat. Some of the features of the jacket are:

  • 28 different pockets on the inside, outside and even on the sleeves
  • Removable hood
  • Magnetic front closure flap
  • Handwarmer pockets deep enough to stick half you arm in
  • Integrated wire management ports (SeV call this their Personal Area Network) – these small openings run through most of the pockets and allow you to route cables from pocket to pocket
  • Clear touch-screen accessible pockets – perfect for your smartphone or iPod
  • Headphone cord management – allows you to hide your headphone cord and bring it up into the collar
  • Weight management pockets for holding heavy items
  • Individual pockets for your keys, PDA stylus, memory cards, eyeglass cleaning cloth, change and even water bottles or a hydration pack.

The list of features and innovations in this jacket is endless. The jacket itself is made of breathable and water resistant ENAFF material.


The new SeV Fleece 5.0

The new SeV Fleece 5.0 is, as the name describes it, their fifth generation fleece jacket. Just like the Quantum jacket, this fleece has a huge list of features. The main differences (besides the fabric) are that the fleece has removable sleeves and no hood. The fleece jacket has 24 pockets (just 4 less than the jacket) and all of the other innovations that I listed for the Quantum jacket.

The “Signature Edition” price and use

Both the jacket and the fleece feel absolutely fantastic, and you can really tell a lot of effort was put in to the design and manufacturing process. You won’t find any loose threads or bad stitches on this thing.

The Quantum jacket retails for $250 and the fleece costs $140. If you purchase them together as the “Signature System”, you’ll save $50 ($340). This is in line with any other premium winter jacket, but has the added advantage of all the SeV features.

I’ve spent well over $300 in the past for a good jacket, and only got 6 pockets. The best part of the investment is that you actually get four different garments: a jacket, a fleece, a fleece/jacket combo, and a vest (when you remove the sleeves from the fleece). The 2 products should provide comfort for autumn, through winter to early spring.

The best part about the jacket or fleece filled with gadgets, is that you don’t even notice them; the pockets have been specially designed to be “no bulge”, and with the weight distribution system, you don’t feel like you are carrying your office in your pockets. Once you reach the airport, you simply take your jacket off, and place it in a bin.

To give you an idea of the storage space, I filled my jacket with all the usual stuff I carry in my laptop bag, including a Cradlepoint wireless broadband router with 3G modem, 3 phones, an iPod touch, a digital camera, a backup battery pack, several memory cards, my Slacker G2 music player, a Livescribe Pulse smartpen with notepad, a Franklin speaking global translator and 2 Bluetooth headsets (one stereo). The back of the jacket even has one massive pocket large enough for a small laptop (my Acer Aspire One fits just fine). Of course, I am hardly an average user, so my extreme example won’t apply to most travelers.

Final thoughts…

The SeV Scott Jordan Signature Edition is kind of like finding presents under the Christmas tree. Once you are done opening everything, you always find one or two other packages everyone missed. With these jackets, it is no different; even after wearing them for an hour, I kept finding new pockets, or other ways to access a pocket.

SeV have added a small business card in every pocket describing its function, what it can store and whether it is connected to the “personal area network” cord management system. In one of the front pockets is also a stack of “Vestimonials” which are perfect if you want to spread some SeV love around.

Even if you are not a gadget freak like myself, the SeV jacket and fleece provide a great quality winter combination, and are fine if you only plan to carry some basic things like your iPod, phone and some lip balm.

There really isn’t anything I can complain about with the jacket or fleece. Naturally some may find it a little on the pricey side, but if you compare it with other pro-grade winter gear, you’ll see that it is very much in line with their prices. If anything, the only minor complaint is that washing the jackets will take longer, because you have to go through all 52 pockets to be sure you didn’t leave any of your gadgets behind.

The Scott Jordan Signature Collection is available directly from their site.

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Daily deal – SeV “Scott Jordan Signature System” jacket and fleece

by Scott Carmichael on

My daily deal for today is for the newest product from SeV. The Scott Jordan Signature System is a combination of the new Quantum jacket and the popular SeV fleece. With the temperatures slowly dropping, now is (sadly) the time to start looking for a new jacket for the winter months.

The new Quantum jacket is the “cream of the crop” in the SeV lineup, offering an astounding 28 pockets and compartments. The jacket features a removable hood, and a built in waist-cinch tightens around your waist to keep snow and slush from shooting up your tummy if you are into snow sports. The jacket also has the patented SeV cord management system and a clear pouch for storing your iPod, while still allowing full access to the controls. The jacket has a waterproof, windproof and breathable membrane layer, which is designed to keep you warm and comfortable.

The second part of the signature edition is the SeV fleece 5.0. This fleece doubles as a warm vest thanks to its removable sleeves. Incorporated in the vest are 24 pockets, including several “deep pockets” for large items. This brings the total number of pockets to 52 when you add the jacket. Just like the jacket, the fleece also has the cord management system as well as 2 handwarmer pockets, a secure travel document pocket and they have even built a removable sunglass cleaning cloth right into one of the pockets.

These garments normally sell for $250 (for the jacket) and $140 (for the fleece), which is in line with the price of most other high end winter gear, but if you purchase them on the SeV pre-order page, you’ll only pay $270 for the two, which is a $120 discount.

The Scott Jordan Signature System is expected to ship to you from the SeV warehouse on October 10th, and shipping is just $5. The items are available from XS to XXXL. You can learn more about the new Scott Jordan Signature System here.