Another 'Which bag?' thread

[Endoviper]

Sorry, I know there are loads of these kinds of threads (and I have spent days reading most of them) but I need to decide which bag I want as a birthday gift and I have narrowed it down to three....so wanted to see if there was anyone who could offer first hand advice/experience of any of these bags.

The ones I am looking at are the STM Scout 2 small laptop shoulder bag, theCoolBananas OldSchool leather bag and the Timbuk 2 D-Lux Racing Stripe Messenger bag.

The bag will be used for day to day commute as well as the occasional trip and hotel stay. It needs to carry everything in my sig (except the iPad 1 and the iMac 😉 ) along with all the chargers, glasses case, wallet, in ear headphones case, paperwork (A4, single folder usually) a Buffalo external drive and a Mophie Powerjuice Duo...so quite a bit of stuff. I don't really want a huge bag though...so will any of the above do the job ?

 

[Macman45]

You might want to take a look at the City Messenger bag...I used to carry a cMBP17", an MBA 13" an iPad and all cables chargers etc. with plenty of room for other things too. It might not be the most stylish bag out there, but it's strong, well made and never lets me down.:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/58577...57715&ef_id=UHkeFgAAXB6EAu7W:20130511075821:s

 

[glenthompson]

I'm not a fan of messenger style bags if you're carrying a lot of small stuff. Most lack the easily accessible pockets and compartments to hold them separately. Everything gets stuffed down into the one or two main compartments. Better one that can be opened up more.

If you fly, a bag that can split open with just the MacBook in one side makes it easier to get through security.

 

[thundersteele]

I've had a look at the STM bags some time ago. They are tailored very narrowly around carrying just a Laptop + Phone + Tablet. This is nice if you want good protection for those devices, but leaves almost no space for anything else... notebooks, pens, lunch, you might even have trouble finding space for all the chargers and accessories.

The Coolbananas bag looks to be similarly restricted, the Timbuk2 seems to have more space.

A second point with messenger bags is that Accessories tend to clump up at the bottom, making the bag look bulky. Usually a Backpack offers more storage capacity - I have a Dakine backpack that fits up to 17'' MBPs + Chargers etc, several notebooks and still has enough room to hold some clothes or a pair of shoes, and a lunch bag. This can be pretty useful for one day trips.