Favorite Laptop Backpacks Reviews
Favorite Laptop Backpacks Reviews
If you take your laptop with you to work or school, a backpack is the best way to carry it. A backpack is more ergonomic than a messenger bag, capable of holding more of what you need than a briefcase, and more stylish than a rolling bag.
Although each person has their own criteria for what makes a perfect backpack, every bag we recommend holds a laptop and its power supply, remains comfortable to wear for an entire commute, and looks stylish (though tastes vary). We have backpacks that are great for riding on tight subway cars or biking in downpours. For ultra-organized tech wranglers and for people who want a black hole. For the fashion-forward, who want something small and super stylish or leather and luxe. For road warriors who fly regularly, and for fitness-minded folks who bring their gym gear to work.
Why it's great: The Topo Rover Pack combines a campground aesthetic (in colors ranging from flashy to subdued) with a practical design perfect for subway commutes. Its main pocket is basically a large bucket, with a divider for your laptop, that can expand to accommodate a lot of stuff: notebooks, books, chargers, lunch containers, headphones. Once it's full, you can cinch it closed and then buckle it from the top. The outside of the bag features two zippered pockets, one in the flap top and one on the front of the bag; both are big enough to fit a portable charger, a snack, some cables, and a Kindle. The bag also has two expandable side pockets for water bottles, perfectly sized for Zojirushi travel mugs and Hydro Flask water bottles.
The bag itself is impressively light, at under 2 pounds, and it has cushy padded shoulder straps. That means that even when you've filled it with your work essentials, it's still supremely comfortable to wear. And its fabric is water resistant, so if you get caught in a drizzle, you can rest assured that your gear will stay dry. Staff writer Thorin Klosowski, who has had a Topo Rover Pack for six years, said that it's still in excellent shape and looks new despite heavy use.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: The pockets on the front of the Topo Rover Pack, outside of the main bucket, are a little small. Ideally, they would be large enough to accommodate a small book so that you wouldn't have to unbuckle, uncinch, and rummage through the interior just to access something to read during your commute. This isn't a problem if you use a Kindle or spend your commute listening to podcasts or looking at your phone.
Why it's great: This bag holds and organizes an impressive amount of gear without bulging or becoming disorganized. And although some people don't like its techie aesthetic, its ultra-functional organization is great if you carry many small things and want each of them to have a dedicated spot.
During my testing, I carted a 13-inch MacBook Pro and its charger, a 9.7-inch iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard, a memo pad, a Sony α5100 mirrorless camera with kit lens, lens filters, a Seagate portable hard drive, an SD card, two USB-to-Lightning cables, a Micro-USB cable, a USB-A–to–USB-C adapter, the Jackery Bolt battery pack, my keys, a Zojirushi travel mug, and occasionally a small Ziploc container.
Loaded down with gear, the Professional Slim was comfortable, even when I lugged it around Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center during a four-day robotics competition. The wide shoulder straps and back padding distributed the weight well, and the large ventilation channel in the back panel did a decent job of fending off the inevitable back sweat.
The main pocket has a sleeve suitable for a laptop up to 17 inches, and the bag has a separate tablet pocket that you access from the top. But the real organizational strength lies in the front pocket, which has an arrangement of storage options and serves as a built-in cable organizer on the front of your bag. The pocket hinges sideways—“like opening the refrigerator,” as one of our testing-panel participants put it—so you don't have to dig down into the bowels of the bag to access all of the cords, adapters, or small fiddly bits that you carry with you to make your technology work.
Why it's great: The Aer Day Pack offers a surprising amount of organization in its few pockets, all within a stylish, nondescript profile. It handled my laptop, my charger, my iPad, and everything else I needed on a day-to-day basis, but a fair amount of my stuff ended up getting thrown in and mixed up at the bottom of the main pockets.
The fabric of the Day Pack feels sturdier than that of the eBags Professional Slim. Aer bills the front panel as being water resistant, and in my testing water beaded on it. The material also did a fair job of keeping out any rainwater that got past my umbrella on my walks to and from the subway.
The pack pairs just as well with jeans and a T-shirt as it does with chinos and a button-up, making it useful for both weekend trips and workday treks. The wide, almost S-shaped straps kept the bag from bouncing around too much while I walked (or occasionally ran to catch a train), and plenty of plush padding on the straps and back panel kept the weight from digging into my shoulders or upper back.
And you can have it in any color you want, as long as you want black.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: The front panel of this bag, a 900D polyester fabric with a polyurethane coating, was polarizing. Some testers (myself included) thought it added a bit of texture and depth to a design that was otherwise overly simple. Others hated the shimmery look and thought that it was cheap fabric masquerading as a premium feature or that it was needlessly flashy or bougie.
Why it's great: Whereas the eBags Professional Slim prioritizes pure functionality and organization, and the Aer Day Pack has less internal organization but offers a slick aesthetic, the Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack Deluxe keeps things organized and protected with a tougher, 1,200-denier polyester exterior that keeps looking good even after you accidentally drop the bag on a muddy street.
Its exterior fabric feels textured and tough without being overly abrasive, and I had little trouble cleaning off clay and mud from after-work softball games. The straps feel well made—stiff and robust—yet still comfortable, even without as much padding as on the other bags's straps.
Why it's great: If you're going to be wearing a backpack to work every day, it needs to be fashionable but even more so functional—comfortable, smartly organized, and easy to commute with. The Rains Backpack Mini balances those seemingly opposed qualities in a slim package. It's gorgeous: Sleek, minimalist lines keep it from veering into ostentatiousness, and even the pastel-hued color options feel professional. Unlike some of the other bags we considered (such as the too-casual Herschel), this Rains model looks good over business-casual office wear but also perfectly cute thrown over a pair of denim overalls (which is how I wore it the week of an apartment move after accidentally packing up every other article of clothing I owned). The days I carried it for testing, I even received a few compliments from strangers—an unheard-of event on the otherwise aloof streets of New York.
Why it's great: A good gym bag keeps your gym gear separate from everything else you commute with, and is big and well organized enough that it can hold both sets of items without being uncomfortable. The Thule Vea Backpack 25L feels a bit like Hermione Granger's enchanted handbag from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—even after I had packed it full with my laptop, notebooks, a paperback, a laptop charger, an external power adapter, a water bottle, shorts, a T-shirt, clean underwear, socks, and running shoes, it maintained a refined shape that didn't make me stand out. Plus, it still had room for even more stuff.
Why it's great: The North Face Pivoter Backpack is a laptop backpack that you can use as a gym bag too, as long as you're willing to make some compromises. The bag features one primary compartment, which includes a sleeve to accommodate devices and notebooks up to 13 inches wide, and two supplementary zippered areas.
Unlike the Thule Vea, the Pivoter doesn't have a dedicated shoe compartment, and neither of its two zippered areas was quite large enough for my men's size 12½ shoes (though the pocket in the very front offered a roomy fit for a co-worker's women's size 9 shoes), so I wrapped them in a plastic bag and packed them in the main compartment. Then I was able to pack my shorts, a T-shirt, and socks in the front supplementary compartment (with my keys and portable charger in the internal zippered section) and to tuck my Kindle and laptop charger into the middle supplementary area. The bag also features two exterior elastic side pockets that can expand to accommodate a thick 1-liter Nalgene water bottle or tighten to secure a thinner Zojirushi insulated coffee mug.
Please send email to inquiry@hcbags.com for more details.
