Orbitkey Insulated Lunch Bag Review

The Orbitkey Insulated Lunch Bag is a clean, compact option for keeping food and drinks cooler or warmer for a few hours without feeling like you’re carrying a traditional cooler. Its recycled polyester exterior looks polished enough for the office. At the same time, the insulated interior and expandable rolltop closure give it enough versatility for road trips, picnics, beach days, or grabbing takeout on the way home. After using it in a variety of situations, we’ve found it strikes a nice balance between everyday usability and the extra capacity you want from an insulated lunch bag.

External Components

The Orbitkey Insulated Lunch Bag is made of recycled polyester on the exterior, and we really like the way it looks. It has a clean, understated aesthetic that reminds us a bit of Bellroy’s approach to bags. We don’t mean that Orbitkey copied Bellroy—Bellroy makes lunch bags too, and they’re different from this one—but we like Bellroy, so we consider the comparison a compliment. Orbitkey has done a great job of making something that looks appropriate sitting on a desk at work, yet feels durable enough to throw in the trunk for a road trip or take to the beach.

Durability has also been solid throughout testing. This lunch bag has spent time in a closet, trunk, backseat, front seat, travel backpack, and even inside a hardsided cooler, and we haven’t had any issues with the exterior. It still looks almost brand new despite being moved around quite a bit.

A strap runs vertically down the middle of the lunch bag, adding structure to the overall design. More importantly, it helps secure the rolltop closure. The strap connects to a metal hook at the top, which attaches to another section of webbing that forms a small daisy chain. There are four loops, allowing you to secure the bag at different points depending on how much you have packed inside.

The rolltop doesn’t create a completely sealed closure as you’d find on a traditional cooler. Instead, the amount of material you roll down and where you secure the strap determines how tightly the top is closed. The more you can compress and secure it, the less open space there is for warm air to get inside, which can help your food and drinks stay cooler for longer.

There’s a small Orbitkey logo on the daisy chain, but branding is otherwise kept to a minimum. We have no complaints here. The overall look is simple without feeling boring, and the hardware fits nicely with the rest of the bag.

There isn’t a ton happening externally, and that’s perfectly fine. The Orbitkey Insulated Lunch Bag looks good, feels durable, and keeps the design relatively clean. We’ll move on because there isn’t much else to cover on the outside.

Fit Notes

There’s only one strap, and there’s really only one primary way to carry the bag. It attaches near the upper sides and can be adjusted to change how much slack you have, giving it a little more versatility than a simple fixed carry handle.

At its longest, the strap is long enough to carry the lunch bag comfortably underneath your arm while the strap rests on your shoulder. Even with larger arms, there should be enough room to carry it this way without feeling cramped.

The strap can also be shortened considerably. At its tightest, it feels more like a taut carry strap than a shoulder-carrying design. It isn’t extremely tight, but it makes the bag comfortable to grab by hand. That’s particularly useful for those quick transitions from the fridge to the car or from your larger travel bag to the lunch room.

You can technically wear it crossbody when the strap is extended, but it doesn’t get particularly long. I did use it this way while cycling, though, and while it worked, it was tight and wasn’t especially comfortable. That’s more of an emergency or activity-specific carry option than something I’d recommend for regular use.

Overall, the strap does what it needs to without trying to turn the lunch bag into something it isn’t. It’s primarily designed for shoulder or hand carry, and the adjustment lets you easily switch between the two.

Inside The Lunch Bag

There are two external pockets, starting with a flat zippered pocket on the back. It doesn’t have much depth, but that’s appropriate for what it’s designed to carry. A phone, wallet, keys, or other flat essentials fit nicely here. It could also work for something like a granola bar that you want to keep separate from the colder contents of the main compartment. It’s a small addition, but it’s useful to have a dedicated place for items that don’t need to go inside the insulated area.

On the side is a pocket designed around a small water bottle. Think roughly the thickness of a disposable 12 or 16-ounce plastic bottle rather than a 32-ounce Nalgene. It can also work well for a couple of oranges, an apple that isn’t too large, or similarly sized snacks. The pocket gives you an easy-access spot for something you want to keep separate from the main compartment, and it doesn’t add much visual bulk when you’re not using it.

The main storage area is where the lunch bag starts to feel different from some of the more basic insulated bags we’ve tested. Rather than giving you one completely open cavity, Orbitkey adds a couple of liner pockets inside. They’re nothing elaborate and don’t have any additional closure, but they give you somewhere to slide smaller items that you don’t want floating around with your food. I didn’t find a ton of uses for them during testing, though something like salad dressing packets or other small food accessories could make good use of the space.

The rest of the main compartment is open, giving you plenty of flexibility with how you pack it. The interior features a recycled nylon liner that is easy to wipe down after use. That makes sense for a lunch bag, where spills and condensation are inevitable, and the relatively open design makes it easy to reach the corners with a cloth.

It’s worth keeping expectations in check here, because this is an insulated lunch bag rather than a traditional cooler. We aren’t expecting it to keep food cold for days, and that’s not what it’s designed to do. It’s meant to keep food and drinks cooler or warmer for hours, and in our testing, it does that just fine.

That also gives it a useful place in travel. If you like picnics, make your own meals, or prefer grabbing groceries instead of paying for every meal while traveling, this is an easy bag to bring along. It’s also useful for keeping drinks cold for a hike, beach day, or trip to the park, and it works well on road trips when you want somewhere to keep leftovers cold.

On a road trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I used it to keep a few drinks I brought from home cold for a few hours into the car ride, including some Olipop Root Beer. Once I arrived, I used it to keep leftovers warm after eating out until I got back to my accommodations. I also built my own “six pack” with drinks and other stuff everyone wanted, including things for the kids to take along while watching the sunset at the beach.

On the way home, I passed my favorite pasty place, but I wasn’t hungry yet, so I stopped, loaded the pasties into the lunch bag, and waited about two hours before eating them. They were still warm and tasty when I finally got around to them, which is exactly the kind of real-world use where an insulated lunch bag makes a lot of sense.