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I know this isn’t a Palm accessory review but it’s somewhat related as this jacket allows me the ability to hold my Treo 650 and other Palm accessories very discretely and has its PAN (Personal Area Network) features, so it’s still related. And as most Palm Discovery readers may already know, I’m a gadget freak and love anything to do with gadgets and related stuff. I guess that this jacket falls right in with all the gadget type stuff I’m excited about. So, for those gadget suppliers and vendors out there, if you want a review of your product, send me a email via the contact form below and I’ll be more than happy to review it!

I finally succumbed to the temptation and bought myself a ScotteVest, well, actually the ScotteVest SportTEC 4.0 jacket. I’ve mentioned that I was getting it in a previous posting about Scott eVest’s End of Summer sale on the SportTEC 4.0 jacket which brought the normally priced $119.99 or even $99.99 (depending on where you look) down to an amazing price of $39.99! The sale ended on Sept 11th so if you didn’t purchase it, maybe you’ll have to wait a few months before they come out with another sale. You can still check out some of the Clearance items that they offer. Unfortunately, the style and color as well as the size offered may not be right for you. But it doesn’t hurt to look and see if there’s anything for you. But while you’re here, why not check out the rest of this review on the Sport TEC 4.0 jacket first and see if there’s anything you’re interested in? Then, you can save up your money for the next sale and come back and help out Palm Discovery by clicking on the affiliate link and making the purchase.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of ScotteVest and purchases made with the affiliate links in this post and throughout the site will help keep Palm Discovery.net running as paying for future giveaways offered from time to time. Thanks to your generosity, $20 was donated to Plan Canada (formerly Foster Parents Plan International) in 2006 and $85 was donated in 2007.

Anyway, I ordered the jacket online at their website Sept 1st and received an email confirmation shortly afterwards. On Sept 5th, I received an email reply from Scott eVest regarding my request to have them mail the shipment via USPS instead of their standard UPS shipment. As most of us Canadians know, UPS charges an unreasonably expensive “brokerage fee” just for “handling” the shipment. I was hoping that I could get around their obvious rip off business practice by requesting to have it sent through other means. Anyway, they reply back to say that it was “not possible”.

Hmm. I thought I read somewhere that someone was able to get Scott eVest to mail via USPS to Canada. Of course, I can’t find the article now when I’m looking for it. I guess I’ll have to do a bit of digging because it’s extremely unfair to be paying close to 100% of your purchase for some “brokerage” fee. I don’t mind paying the duty, GST and whatever else required by law, but to pay something that in many cases constitute a HUGE percentage of the product’s price is completely unethical in my view. Apparently, if I chose a higher priced shipping method that it would include this “brokerage” fee but given the price of these alternative shipping it does not justify it. So, those people located outside of the US may have to consider paying much more than what you expect if you are planning on purchasing anything that is shipped by UPS or Fedex as they both charge outrageous brokerage fees. If you have a relative or friend in the US, you may want to have the shipment sent there and then have your friend ship it to you via USPS. I’m sure it will still be much cheaper this route, although it may take a while longer before you receive the shipment.

Anyway, according to the tracking information, the original date was Sept 5th when it received the details of the billing information. On the 6th, it travelled through Salt Lake City, UT and Hermiston, OR. It was in Portland, OR on the 7th. It passed by Redmond, WA and stopped at Richmond, BC, Canada on the 8th where it went through customs and stayed there until it was shipped to where I am on the 11th. According to the tracking information originally, the date of shipment was expected on the 12th but I received it on the 11th. I’m certainly not complaining though.

That’s not bad considering that Labor Day landed on Monday the 4th and I placed my order on the 1st, a Friday. It took about 4 business days to ship.

Before I continue on about the shipping and my displeasure with UPS, I will discuss the main topic, which is the product, the Scott eVest SportTEC 4.0 jacket.

ScotteVest SportTEC 4.0 pictures (click on image for a bigger picture)

Overall jacket view

Outer right pockets

Outer left pockets

Top of jacket

Right inner pockets

Left inner pockets

Collar

And I’ve provided a video review of the ScotteVest SportTec 4.0 jacket as well:

Video review of ScotteVest SportTec 4.0 jacket at YouTube

SeV Sport TEC video review part 1

SeV Sport TEC video review part 2

The jacket is quite nice. I like being able to string my Palm Treo 650 stereo headphones through the inner lining, around the back of the collar and into the left outer breast pocket where I normally keep my Treo 650. It’s quite nice and convenient to leave the headphone strung up in the jacket and not have to unwind, untangle or do anything to it like I normally do. But, the headphone wires are not *long* enough, or more specifically, the wire to the earbuds are not long enough to string through all the hoops and clips, etc and still be able to put them in my ears. This has nothing to do with the jacket, but the headphone itself though.

I like having so many pockets available to me so this jacket really appeals in that department. The removable sleeves is another plus because I do like wearing vests with pockets so that I can have all my stuff with me and wear it under a thicker jacket when the weather gets colder, or just as is as a vest when it’s warmer and of course, as a light jacket in the spring or fall. The jacket is so versatile!

The mesh pockets, although they allow me to get a better view of what’s contained in each pocket and for breathability, they do sometimes get in the way, when I put things in, especially my credit cards as the plastic holder of my cards do get somewhat caught in the mesh holes, if only temporarily. I think, had the pockets not been of the coolmax mesh, that they could be much better at retaining or holding its shape.

This is one area of the jacket that I think could have been improved. The Scott eVest jacket is meant as a jacket for carrying gadgets and other items discretely, so that you don’t “advertise” you have your iPod with you or your Treo or whatever. Had the pockets been lined with a stiffer material that doesn’t “give” or stretch but retain a more rigid state, I think that it would be better.

I have a multi-pocket vest I purchased in Hong Kong and it’s great at retaining the pocket shape due to the stiffer and rigid cotton/polyester blend fabric. The vest pockets were actually better at retaining the pocket shape compared to the pockets of the Scott eVest jacket. But of course, the pockets were in plain view. So, if Scott eVest could improve upon the stiffness or rigidity of the pockets, I believe that they will really make an excellent jacket (not that it’s not good already). But we can always improve, right? That’s just a suggestion.

With that in mind, if you simply just dump all your gadgets and items into whatever pockets are available in the jacket, you will notice that it will “show” that you’ve got lots of stuff in your pockets. By that, I mean, that the pockets will sag inside and it clearly shows from the outside. If the lining were of a stiffer material like I’ve just mentioned, I’m sure that it won’t be as noticeable. But then, of course, the jacket would not be as “breathable”. I personally would prefer a less breathable jacket so that the pockets would retain its shape better because I do tend to carry a bit of stuff with me. Maybe Scott eVest may consider this in a newer version upgrade or in a different version jacket. So, in the meantime, you have to take the time to play around with putting the gadgets in each of the available pockets to find a good balance so that you can still carry them with as much discretion as you can manage.

The jacket is lined with Coolmax mesh lining from the sleeves and through most of the inner parts of the jacket, for breathability. It has 21 pockets, although I was able to only find 19.

I did find that the smaller, especially the inner zippers can be a bit difficult to open. I know I have to be careful when zipping it open. And there was originally a removable “clip” that was clipped to the right earbud pocket but the snap broke. I couldn’t get it back together. But that’s not a big deal as I’m not sure what I could have done with the clip anyway. Aside from these slight observations, I really don’t have anything negative or bad to say about the jacket. It works great.

Here’s a brief description of the jacket (from ScotteVest):

The Sport Tec 4.0 has 21 pockets, detachable sleeves and hood, magnetic closures and windflap and tons of SeV signature features!

This jacket is offered in two colors: Battleship Gray and Desert Sand.

The outrageous UPS brokerage fee

Okay. Here’s the portion of my review where I’m discussing my displeasure with the UPS brokerage fees. Here’s the breakdown of what I paid for the jacket. After everything, it wasn’t a bargain, and that’s got nothing to do with ScotteVest.

The price of the jacket was $39.99 USD.
The shipping via UPS is $17.76.
Total in USD is $57.75

In Canadian funds with regards to the “fees”, here’s the breakdown:

6% GST: $3.13
7% PST: $3.65
Customs $7.96
Brokerage fee: $29.56
Brokerage GST: 1.78

Total: $46.07 Cdn

Plus $57.75 (jacket & shipping) x 1.12 ($0.89 USD = $1 Cdn) = $64.68 Cdn

Final total: $46.07 (fees to pay UPS driver) + $64.68 (jacket + shipping) = $110.75 Canadian dollars

Hardly a “deal” by any stretch of imagination.

And to make it even worse, let’s calculate how much UPS gets out of this transaction:

$17.76 x 1.12 (US/Cdn conversion) = $19.89 + $29.56 (brok fee) = $49.45. UPS gets $49.45 just for shipping this over the border. For this price, I would have expected something like next day delivery.

Considering that the Canadian conversion price of the Scott eVest is:

$39.99 x 1.12 = $44.79

Wow! UPS has managed to charge MORE than the price of what’s shipped by an extra $4.66 Cdn, which is an additional 10% on top of the value of the product!

I can’t understand why UPS can get away with such outrageous “brokerage” fees that for many shipments costs far over and above the value of the shipment. Thus, why a lot of Canadians don’t want to deal with US based companies if they ship via UPS. I will have to look into how I can avoid this because I consider this “highway robbery” if a company can charge so much to do so little. This is ridiculous!

Again, this has nothing to do with ScotteVest (although I was hoping that they would ship it via USPS) but I wanted to bring this information to light for those who may consider purchasing any products from any online store that ships via UPS or Fedex so that they won’t be shocked at shelling out so much more than they expected originally.

I think that ScotteVest should consider getting a Canadian affiliate that can hopefully bypass this crazy brokerage fee charged by couriers like UPS and Fedex. Or, consider shipping their products via USPS. Or setting up something with Borderfree from Canada Post. I’m quite sure that a lot of people in Canada would buy more from ScotteVest (I know I would) if there’s something like either Borderfree or something else that can decrease the amount of extra charges that we shouldn’t really need to pay. Unfortunately, we all look at the final cost we paid when purchasing something and when the shipping costs makes the total cost become doubled, it does cause us to hesitate on completing the purchase.

Aside from the shipping displeasure, I don’t really have anything negative to say about the jacket. I’m wearing it daily as a jacket since it’s getting a bit chilly now up in the North and it’s quite nice to have. I would highly recommend this jacket for anyone who is interested in getting a Scott eVest clothing as it offers both a jacket and a vest so you can wear it either way. The removable sleeves is quite nice in my opinion as I do tend to enjoy wearing vests since they aren’t as bulky and yet offer me the ability to have all my “stuff” with me. The Sport TEC 4.0 combines the best of both a jacket and vest with the features known in the Scott eVest at a cheaper price than its Classic Vest 4.0.

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