Like Carol Mangis, I've been remiss in sharing my experiences with Briggs and Riley's backpacks. But I've had a more chilling experience with the otherwise impressive @Work Deluxe Computer Backpack, and it involves the unfortunately placed laptop compartment.

As Carol points out, the separate compartment unzips from the side, rather than from the top. That makes it convenient to quickly remove your computer, but it's a dangerous option, especially for an airhead like me.

You see, I tend to hoist a backpack up with a sweeping, circular motion that puts some lateral force on the backpack as I swing it up over my shoulder. Unfortunately, during my first week with the bag, I inadvertently left the computer compartment open after putting a notebook in. Thus as I swung it up on my back, the portable went flying out from the backpack, perpendicular to my body. Luckily the system (a ThinkPad) was unharmed, and I vowed never to do that again. Hah!

A few weeks later, while rushing to an international flight in Munich, I once again neglected to zip up the compartment after going through yet another security checkpoint. This time I was not so lucky, as my temporarily airborne Dell suffered a cracked case upon its forced landing, and I had to nurse the wounded hard drive through a 10-hour flight to San Francisco before copying the files off and leaving it for dead.

Love the backpack. Hate the side-opening notebook compartment. It's just not worth it for a space-case like me.

I've been a fan of Briggs and Riley for a long time. I own lots of their bullet-proof luggage, and have gone through a couple of backpacks too. And the company has a broad enough line that I managed to uncover one that suits me just fine. It's the more sylish Transcend line , which comes in a cool grey version of that ubiquitous ballistic nylon (along with colors called "Sunset" and "Rainforest"). I've been carrying it for months, and it's held up reasonably well. The outside looks great, but inside two of the pockets have started to come unstitched. I'm not worried, though, because Briggs and Riley has a lifetime, no-questions-asked warrenty policy--and the repair depot is about 5 miles from my house. Alas, I'm so happy with the bag overall that I can't bear to part with it for the 4 weeks or so it'll take to fix.

The bag itself is slim, but holds a lot, with enough room for pens, paper, receipts and even two mesh pockets on the outside for water bottles. Even better, the large, main pocket includes a padded notebook sleeve and opens on the top--which means even when I leave it unzipped (which still happens occasionally), nothing flies out.

Apart from the side-opening notebook pocket, I liked the @Work backpack. But I love this one, not only because at $124, it's $75 less expensive as well. And that's not including the cost of notebook repairs down the road--since they're free.

Post by Jim Louderback