5 Great Laptop Bags for Travelers
Whether you prefer a backpack, messenger bag, or tote, we have great choices for carrying your gear.
July 20, 2015 8:00AM EST
You need a bag. Probably several. Tech travelers are jugglers—not just of the inevitable laptop, but of the chargers, cables, readers, USB sticks, and MicroSD cards that make up a full work kit. Here at PCMag and some of our NetShelter sister sites, we travel constantly to conferences and press events with heavy tech loads, so we've seen the good, the bag, and the ugly. These five bags are our current picks for connected travelers.
For our five bags, we've gone for diversity: high-end and midrange backpacks, a messenger bag, a duffel, and a tote. Living in the tech world, we tend to lean away from the more traditional travel brands like Samsonite and Tumi, and towards brands like Ogio and Booq with a long history focusing on technology.
And yes, you can get a less expensive, decent bag. There are innumerable decent $40 bags out there. But even the Wirecutter, which reviews bags more comprehensively than anyone else, seems to believe that $120-$150 is the sweet spot for a high-quality bag nowadays.
1. Our Editor's Choice for a laptop backpack right now is the Ogio Commuter 15 . It's slim, roomy, comfortable, stylish and affordable, and it costs well under $100 on Amazon, making it a broadly democratic choice for a travel bag. It fits under an airline seat, and the flip-up flap makes it easy to get at the dedicated laptop and tablet pockets if you need to take your electronics out at a checkpoint. It's a star.
2. If price is no object, I'm currently in love with the Booq Cobra Pack. It has a somewhat terrifying list price of $295, but it's an amazing tech travel companion, with segregated, padded laptop and tablet sections along the back. It's gloriously padded, highly water resistant, and roomy enough for a full day's change of clothes along with all of your gadgets and chargers. You can also keep your phone in a pocket on the shoulder strap. That's what I'm traveling with now. The less-expensive Booq boa shift ($150) includes a lot of similar features, including those great shoulder-strap pockets and dedicated laptop pocket, but with a bit less room, structure, and style.
3. I'm not personally a big fan of messenger bags for tech travel, because the weight distribution really begins to wear after an hour standing on line in the airport. But if you like them, we prefer the ECBC Zeus Messenger Bag . It has a conservative, office-friendly design, a wide array of organizational pockets to keep things secure, and a useful flap to attach it to the handle of a rolling bag.
Our sister sites GearDiary and ChipChick do more bag reviews than we do here at PCMag, and they often look at things from the perspective of female business travelers, which I'm not.
4. ChipChick recommends the Hex Century Overnight Travel Bag ($129.95) as a more fashion-forward, carry-on duffel for weekend trips. It's roomy enough for a few days' worth of clothing, and has dedicated exterior pockets for a tablet, laptop, and chargers, so you can swiftly pull them out at the checkpoint. It's also a canvas twill bag rather than the nylon our PCMag picks tend to use, giving it a much more organic feel.
5. For a more tote-style bag, GearDiary gives high marks to the Waterfield Vertigo 2.0 ($129). It's a classy distressed-canvas tote which comes in three different sizes for different laptops. There's a laptop protecting sleeve and room for a charger and a phone. The only down side with a bag like this, for my travel, is that it's really only for what you're using on the plane; you'll need to bring your clothes and such in your rollaboard.
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