Swiss Gear SA1923 Black TSA Friendly ScanSmart Laptop Backpack - Fits Most 15 Inch Laptops and Tablets

I'll start by saying that I take my 13" MacBook Pro with me everywhere I go. I use it and my iPhone to run my business when I'm not in the office. So, having a good bag to carry everything I need is a must. I've been using a Case Logic VNA214 14.1-Inch Laptop Attache (Black) for several months now, primarily due to the fact that it's small and lightweight, but it doesn't hold very much, and recently, the pad on the shoulder strap completely separated from the strap. But, back to this bag... I like the fact that the laptop slides in from the side instead of the top. It makes it a lot easier to insert and remove the laptop. There is also a LOT of padding in there, so you don't feel the hard laptop against your back, nor do you have to worry as much about your laptop being damaged. The rubber grip on the handle is nice too. It gives you a good, sturdy point to carry the bag when you're not wearing it as a backpack. I also appreciate the fact that the shoulder straps are long enough to be very comfortable on a large framed person. A year ago, I was pushing 300lbs, and always had a hard time finding a bag with straps to fit my large frame. I no longer have that problem, but I can tell that this bag would have easily fit me then. If you travel a lot, there are a LOT of small pockets on this bag to hold all of your stuff, especially when you're going through security. There's a small pocket at the top that's perfect for your change, watch, rings, etc. There's also another larger pocket on the front that has a key ring for your keys, and has plenty of room to hold your pens/pencils, business cards, and smart phone. There's also a quick access pocket for your music player, that can also double for holding your smart phone. There is a large area that's great for holding your standard accessories (power cables, ethernet cables, usb cables, etc). You can't load everything you own in there, but it's plenty sufficient for the stuff you need. A really NICE feature is a small rubber "clip" on the strap to hold your glasses. I know this is intended for traveling, but since I wear prescription glasses and have prescription sunglasses as well, this is PERFECT for holding my regular glasses while I'm wearing my sunglasses. And of course, the case clamshells open to run through the airport x-ray without having to remove your laptop. There's only one thing that I don't really like about the bag - the pocket for holding your papers and files is the same pocket that completely unzips to clamshell the bag. This means that if you're taking the bag through the airport security line, you either can't have a lot of stuff in that pocket or it'll be loose and exposed when you go through security, or you'll just end up having to remove the laptop from the bag and not worry about clamshelling the bag to go through security. This isn't a big deal for me as I only fly maybe 4-5 times a year, but for the air warriors, this is something that must be considered. Take all of this into account, and consider the fact that the bag has a 5 year limited warranty, and you really can't go wrong with this bag!

A very, very nice backpack. Sturdy, well made, and plenty of pockets to keep things organized. I particularly like the laptop pocket with the side zipper (makes it really easy to get in and out and the location of the zipper makes that compartment easy to find, two things I would have never thought to look for but really make a difference) and the way you can open the bag all the way up (without spilling your contents everywhere) to avoid taking the laptop when traveling is simply a great innovation. This really is a top notch backpack that has everything I need for work. when searching for things I don't like about it, I have to get really nit-picky. I would say the front compartment which would normally hold pens and business cards and such just seems off. The slots are an odd size and things don't fit great in it. However, there is a netted pocket inside the main compartment that is great for small things and that's where I keep my pens and other junk. Also, the side pockets are pretty small, so my mouse and charger are a tight fit, but in the end, they do fit. Obviously, these are very, very minor drawbacks to an otherwise stellar backpack and I would recommend this bag to anyone interested in a well made, professionally minded, nice looking backpack, especially considering the price. I've had worse backpacks that cost twice as much (if not more!)

I have held of putting in this review for almost a year so I was sure what I was talking about. I have used this as a every day bag and for hiking, mountain bike riding, off road motoro bike riding, camping and work trips away with laptops etc. I purchased this bag based on several key features, 1. side mesh pockets for keys (I'm lucky I live in a town with little crime so not worried about security), 2. large side zip pockets for water bottles or laptop chargers etc, 3. front lower pocket with organiser for pens, eye drops, wallet, meds and the like. Not quit as good as previous bags with the actual pockets, but still pretty good, have found it is more a free for all type pocket 4. top front pocket is good for sun glasses (wrapped in own soft protection bag) 5. Main compartment good for most things. down side is it has two sleeves for keeping books organised, but I find it gets in the way when storing pretty much anything in the compartment, I'm tempted to cut them out 6. Two laptop / document storage compartments against the back of the pack, good for 15" HP laptop and also useful for any books etc General comments 1. The top handle flops down meaning it seriously gets in the way when putting anything in the main compartment, I fixed this by zip tieing it to one of the straps at the top of the shoulder straps in a upright position, works well. 2. The shoulder straps sit well on my shoulder and do not clash with my arms when walking 3. It is not the lightest bag but this means it stands up pretty much by itself when it put in on the floor as opposed to falling over like a lighter bag (personal hate of mine) 4. I have used it for some long off road motor bike rides with out problem, nothing even looks like it will fail 5. its not the biggest bag, but that stops me from carring to much, I can get enought in it for a over night work trip away with a bit of carful packing 6. I like the styling, not your average bag 7. Zips are great and take a lot of abuse Summary It took me a long time to find this bag as shopping on line is not the same as in store, I live in town with no bag stores. My research was worth it as I would buy this bag again if it still made and if there was nothing else newer that was better. However I suspect that will be five or more years away as it is very well made.

Extremely well made backpack. This is my third one. The first one I bought about 5 years ago. I bought a second one about 3 years ago and gave the first one to my son which he is still using. I'm still using the second one. The only reason I bought this one was it was such a good price (Amazon Deal of the Day) that I just wanted to have it in reserve in case the one I'm using ever does tear up (which I doubt) or gets too ratty looking (could happen). I travel a good bit and the 'Scan Smart' laptop section is great. I just leave the laptop in the backpack and it always goes right through the TSA scanner. In probably 200 airline trips, TSA has taken my laptop out of the bag only one time. I use this bag every day. It goes with me everywhere. Just to give you an idea, here are things I keep in the various pockets: Main/large pocket - file folders with work papers and personal papers, reading book, plenty of room left over to put food or other items in here to take to work. Zippered upper pocket inside Main pocket - Prescription drugs. Lower zippered pocket inside Main pocket: portable hard drive and other electronics if I am traveling. Pocket inside Main pocket designed for MP3 player - I keep my work security badge here, extremely handy and I always know where I put it. Front lower outer pocket - pens, pencils, personal grooming items (floss, comb, nail cutter), mini-maglight, eyeglass repair kit, business cards, etc. Front upper outer pocket - ear buds, usb cord, 110v to USB charger adapter, 12v to USB charger adapter. Side zippered pockets - eyeglass cases, laptop mouse. Side mesh pockets - laptop power cord when I'm traveling I ride my bike to work alot. I unzip the 'Scan Smart' zippers lay my neatly folded cloths in that section, rezip. and when I get to work my cloths are still nice neat and unwrinkled. As you can probably tell, I really like this bag and I highly recommend it.

After many types of messenger bags I decided to switch out to a backpack for a lot of my work. I did some research online, checked out the reviews and decided on this SwissGear SA 1923. Good bag. it's a very well made back and so far has held up to a lot of my punishment. It's easy to sling over my shoulder and when I have to carry something large I can wear it proper and not worry about it slipping off. It has ample storage space and a lot of compartments to store the odd bits. In the main computer compartment I store my Lenovo 14" laptop. The only addition I did was put a piece of foam at the bottom of the compartment from a Targus bag to keep the bumps from hurting anything. The bag is made to "TSA" specs so the next set of zippers inwards will cleave the backpack in two. In normal mode it allows me to store my iPad or bluetooth keyboard in a webbed compartment. Oh, quick hint. At the top, where all these zippers meet, there's a loop where I put a carabiner. All these zippers have a hole at the end where they'll easily fit onto a small carabiner. Do this or the weight of the laptop will pull the zipper down. No problem unless you're wearing the backpack, driving down the road on your motorcycle. VERY close call. Side pockets allow me to separate out my AC adapter and small amount of tools. There's a large central compartment for my notebook (paper) and iPad and a front pouch that gathers all of my other bits and pieces. Oh yeah, there's a top front pocket, by the handle, that's perfect to hold quick to get at items. Great for drink mixes or granola bars. The material seems tough, it stores a lot of my junk and is pretty easy to carry around. Exactly why I purchased it. Easy to carry by the handle as well as one or both shoulder straps. Plenty of pockets and carabiner attachment points. And, is TSA compliant. But why not 5 stars? I only had two problems with this bag, both relatively minor. First, it will fall FLAT ON ITS FACE! The way the bag is made causes the bag to flop over onto its face no matter how it's loaded. Not really a problem but I like to put my bag down so I can get at the pockets and the first time I did this it took a header off a chair and crashed onto a concrete floor. Kind of a pain to always have to hide away the pockets when you put it down. Second complaint is the lack of storage for small items. I have a lot of cables, adapters, and other small do-dads. There really isn't a good small item dividers. Like I said, small complaint but important to me. I've gotten around it by purchasing other small zippered storage bags that I can stuff into the larger compartments. All in all a good bag. Glad I purchased it and would recommend to others but with those two caveats.

Wow, this backpack is the best! I had ordered 2 different packs from LL Bean to replace a 13-year old JanSport laptop backpack that's finally coming apart. Neither of the LL Bean ones were big enough for me, despite sounding as-big or bigger than this one. And this pack offers SO much more padding for my laptop. I LOVE the separate laptop compartment and the HUGE main compartment. In the LL Bean packs, the laptop sleeve was inside the main compartment, so it took up a lot of main compartment space. To compare them more specifically, this pack's main compartment is the same depth as LL Bean's largest capacity laptop backpack's entire depth. For example, the main compartment of the SA1923 holds my SLR camera case -- with my laptop in its separate compartment with room to spare. Not possible in the LL Bean models. To provide more of a description than what is above, this pack's bottom front pocket has all the pen holders and other organizing pockets. The top front pocket is one large thin pocket. The two side pockets are deep and very cool. The water bottle holders are very well-made -- I think they're double-lined or perhaps just use a really nice, thick mesh material. There is a small pocket hanging from the top back of the main compartment for your iPod/phone, etc. and a headphone cord hole just above that. On the outside, the hole comes out under and slightly behind the large, sturdy handle. The straps and back material are very nicely padded. And the pack is the perfect height for petite (5'1") me -- other packs hit the back of my neck when I looked up, but not this one. Finally, the quality of materials is REALLY nice all around. I can't tell you how excited I am to have finally found my new backpack after over a month of searching and trying out different models. Don't hesitate, this is a great find!

I purchased this almost 11 years ago. We have travelled to different places together! It has lots of spaces for anything you need for travel and day to day use, such as school and gym. It is like the first day. Zero issues with this backpack. Highly recommended!

I have spent a long time looking for a great work backpack and this is it. My basic requirements were a bag that could hold my work gear; laptop, tablet, chargers, mouse, and most importantly papers and files. It's easy to find a briefcase or messenger bag that has dividers for paperwork, however it was nearly impossible to find this simple, yet critical feature in a backpack. This bag met all of those requirements. In total the backpack has 3 main compartments; one with the usual pen/pencil pockets, a mid size compartment with the file dividers, and finally the laptop compartment. I have a 15 inch work laptop, however there is enough room in the compartment for one up to 17 inches. In additional to the main compartments, there are 2 large side zippered pockets, 2 side mesh pockets, 1 small back pocket, and 1 zippered internal pocket. The backpack has a zipper travel feature which splits the bag in half for faster TSA lines. I was skeptical that TSA was going to let this pass, however I was able to pass the bag through xray machines in two US international airports without incident. Lastly, I have scoliosis which makes carrying bags painful at times. This is the main reason I wanted to switch from a briefcase to a backpack. This is hands down the most comfortable backpack I've owned and has excellent weight distribution capabilities. I would recommend this bag to anyone who needs a solid, large capacity work backpack.

Es una mochila robusta, de material grueso y resistente (y hasta el momento impermeable), con mucho espacio al interior. Las líneas blancas son de material reflejante. El compartimiento para la laptop de hasta 15.6" tiene cierre lateral, el cierre que sigue después de este es para abrir en su totalidad la mochila a fin de mostrar el equipo en la revisión de los aeropuertos y también tiene espacio para acomodar folders o libretas. El cierre siguiente es el que tiene más espacio, tiene la bolsa para el reproductor o celular y tiene en el fondo el elemento acolchado que cuando lo bajas permite que la mochila permanezca parada así como una bolsa de malla con cierre en la parte superior del compartimiento. Por último dos cierres más al frente en el exterior de la mochila; uno en la parte inferior para guardar lapiceros, colgar las llaves del gancho incluido, memorias, etc., otro en la parte superior un poco más pequeño. En el exterior de la mochila hay dos bolsas laterales con cierre en donde caben perfectamente los cables de la computadora y a cada lado de estas bolsas la tradicional bolsa de malla para transportar bebidas. En los tirantes acojinados encontrarás un elemento para colgar tus anteojos. El asa superior viene reforzado y al frente encontrarás un gancho para sujetar tu chamarra o cualquier otra cosa que en tu viaje cargues.

Perfect buy. Right overall size. Pockets galore. durable design.

Bag's weight distribution physics is awesome, but surely the company has compromised in quality standards overtime. My earlier bag of same company I purchased in 2008 is still good, but out of use due to totally my fault and rash use, but I don't think this bag is going to give me that satisfaction level even at better humanly use

This is a well made backpack as it should be for the price of it. Lots of storage/pockets.

Use fir work