I'll address the performance of the bag first - simply put, it was perfect. Although the bag - designed for a 14-inch laptop - was a lot smaller than the huge laptop backpack I used to carry, it was just right for my needs. In it I had my Chromebook and charger, a mouse, my Kindle (Paperwhite verison 2, I like e-ink e-readers better than tablets for reading), my wallet, passport, and a bunch of little stuff - pens, paper, keys, loose change, etc. Fully loaded, the bag was still lighter and easier to move around than the old backpack. Access to my stuff was always super convenient. The bag easily fits under airline seats.
The main feature of this bag is its "security friendly" design, which means you don't have to take your laptop out of the bag (if you use it correctly). The laptop fits in a compartment in the rear of the bag all by itself, and when you are putting it through a security scanner, you unzip the bag such that the laptop compartment lies flat to one side by itself. As long as you have put nothing else in the compartment, the security scanners can "see" the laptop without obstruction. And when the bag exits the scanner you can grab the shoulder strap, pick it up, and it (more or less) "closes" so you can just walk away. I went through airport security checkpoints 3 times with this bag and at no time did anyone take issue with it, in America or Belize.
Finishing up with my thoughts on the bag - with the one caveat that this particular bag is designed for a 14-inch laptop and thus is intentionally smaller than other bags - I highly recommend it.
The Chromebook was similarly a joy to use. I won't go into what Chromebooks are all about here - if you like the idea of a laptop designed around cloud-based services you will understand. The fun started when I got on the American Airlines flight from Miami to Belize and found that they had GoGo in-flight Internet. My Chromebook came with 12 free passes for GoGo and so I got to try out the service. It worked well - and was very weird, sitting there posting to G+, and doing Hangouts chats with friends at 30,000 feet. Shortly after we cleared Cuba (about an hour into the flight) the service dropped out - the GoGo page seemed to indicate that they don't have rights to offer the service everywhere. Those free passes are only good for one year from the purchase of the Chromebook so I don't know if I'll get another chance to use them, but it was really neat.
Since the Chromebook is mainly for use online, Internet availability obviously is a concern - "offline" apps notwithstanding, nearly everything you would want to do with a Chromebook really does require an Internet connection. My girlfriend has DSL and a wireless router at her home on Ambergris Caye, so most of the time connectivity was not an issue - we did spend some time getting the phone company to work on her connection as she was getting only getting about 1mbps despite being signed up for 2mbps service.
Pretty much every morning, I would grab my coffee and head out to the porch to enjoy the beautiful weather, listen to the birds singing, and catch up with the world. I would check my email (with Google Inbox), read the news on CNN, catch up with friends and family on Facebook, follow my Google+ groups, the usual stuff. All of this is very normal, mundane activity - and it may be accurately pointed out that it could all be done on a smartphone or tablet - but the experience on all of these is better with a full-fledged browser like Chrome. Having a "real" keyboard is a major plus, especially when posting. And although I've never really liked trackpads, I got so comfortable using the Toshiba CB2 trackpad that I never bothered hooking up my mouse.
During the visit I tried streaming from Hulu and Netflix. Hulu's geographic restrictions prevented me from using my account - I have yet to sign up for a good VPN service - but Netflix worked fine even with the 2mbps DSL connection. I also had a number of movies stored on my SD card and the Chromebook playback was great - this model has a 1080p IPS screen and everything looked wonderful.
In short, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 performed perfectly as a portable computing platform. For me the Chromebook has always been about having a useful secondary device, never meant to replace my desktop. I have it on my desk at work every day, and occasionally use it in the living room at home. However, for the two weeks I was in Belize, I found it to be great for everyday use and never once found myself wishing for anything more.
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