So far: a great bag for the price
I've been using this bag for about two weeks as my daily work bag, and it's been great. I bought this bag with some very specific size requirements - I mostly need it to carry a 16" MacBook Pro, but sometimes I need to transport a 17.3" 10-key-having monster, but also it needs to fit inside of my motorcycle tail bag for commuting (a NelsonRigg Hurricane 2.0, 30L - quick review: it's fine, but I wish I'd gotten something top-loading, and I find the strapping points to be fiddly and you have to adjust them every time your load size changes) while having enough depth to be useful as more than just laptop-transport (lunch, a water bottle, and/or a change of clothes, etc) . This bag fits the bill. The 16" MacBook just fits in the padded sleeve, with room to spare, so if you have a case or shell on it, it should be fine. The padding on the laptop pouch is a bit thin, but it is present on 5 sides, including the bottom. The 17.3 laptop will fit in the main section of the bag and it's still able to zip - there's no padding in this scenario, but it's much better than having to hand-carry it. There is a tablet pouch riding on the laptop pouch, and it is covered by the same elastic strap as the laptop pouch. I measured it to be about 13"x8" (with some give on the 8" side due to the way the strap sits), so it should hold just about anything you could reasonably call a tablet. In fact, I found that the tablet pouch was able to handle a 13" laptop. The zippers are very smooth in operation and are actually strangely satisfying to use! They aren't a brand that I'm familiar with (labeled "SBS" on the pull), so I don't know what to expect from them as far as life span, but so far they seem sturdy enough. The external material (canvas, or something like it) is a nicely soft and feels similar to well-broken in Carhartt work pants, so I expect it will have good longevity. The internal material seems to be of good quality, but I'm concerned that the stitching might fail or rip the internal fabric on the stitching for the vertical dividers of the pouches if, say, something were to get caught and pull on the mouth of a pouch while loading the bag. The internal pouches are plentiful and useful. The large external pocket is a good size for stashing, say, a 8.5x11" note pad or other papers, but due to the bag being very flexible/squishable, papers may become a bit bent if there's not something like a laptop also in the bag to help the bag hold its shape. The internal dividers in the external pocket are not particularly useful to me, but I'm not upset that they're there. The smaller external pockets open very wide, which is good for loading, but it does mean that the strength of the zipper plays a bigger role in keeping the pocket closed and would make the pocket pretty useless if the zipper were to fail - hopefully the zippers hold up. A lot of the nicer bags out there will have a key-lanyard on them somewhere, and this bag puts a neat spin on the idea by making the key-holder removable from the lanyard, which is a bit more convenient if they keys are going to live in the bag. The shoulder strap is a mixed bag (ha) - I like the brass-like appointments, but the strap is a little too flexible and it's easy to get twisted up around the shoulder pad. The fact that there IS a shoulder pad is nice, but I wish the grippy side was made of a grippier material. Overall, it's fine, but it feels like the most after-thought part of the bag's overall design. Stitching all around seems very good, with reinforcements at major stress-points. It bears mentioning that the bag is much less rigid than the product photos make it look. It doesn't really hold its shape on its own, and even can be rolled up pretty tightly. It kind of feels more like a duffel bag in that way, rather than a more traditional laptop bag (or what I think of as a traditional laptop bag, anyway). I don't think of this as a problem, but, if you're looking for a bag that stands up on its own and holds its shape, this one doesn't. The bag has a rugged and retro feel, which is nice. It reminds me of something you might find from Filson. Overall, I'm very happy with it, especially for the price ($38 at time of purchase). Read more
