This bag has tons of different pockets that can hold virtually anything you might need to lug along with your laptop. A few very minor quibbles so far, bearing in mind that I've just received the bag and haven't tried putting it through its paces yet: - If your laptop is smaller than 17 inches, the 17 inch model of the bag may turn out to be a bit too large. My 14.5 inch machine slides down pretty far, and almost gets lost in the bag. Perhaps the 16-inch model might be a bit better, but an inch wouldn't make that much difference. So if you have a smaller laptop, this one might be overkill. - There's not a perfect place to keep the essential bulky corded items (power and mouse). There's plenty of *room* for it, but the smaller zipper compartments would be very lumpy with the cord brick, and if I keep them in the larger main compartments (the one with the laptop or the other main one), the cords etc. will fall to the bottom and I'd have to stick my whole arm in there to get at them. There is a smallish mesh zipper compartment at the top of the laptop section, which just holds the cord and mouse, though I'm concerned that this will not hold up long term. - There are metal grommets in several places on the front of the nag. When I first noticed them I thought they were for ventilation or something. Nope, they don't appear to do anything beyond being decorative. No harm, it just looked a little odd. - There's a key clip inside one of the smaller compartments. Which is nice, but there's no additional length to the clip, it's right against the seam. So you can't fish out and use your keys without detaching them. My older bag had the key clip attached by a ribbon - still not long enough to *use* the keys, but I could at least retrieve them and have a bit more room to do the detaching. With this bag, you have to open the zipper and stick your hand inside. - On my old bag, the webbing straps you can use to adjust the strap length had plastic finger loops at the ends - easier to grasp when tightening the bag while it is on your back. This one has the webbing, but the loop is just a loop of webbing. A bit more trouble to stick fingers in for a better grasp. - The straps themselves are a little stiff-feeling. They might be a bit irritating for some people especially those who will be loading the bag down with a lot of books, and hauling it through airports or while walking longer distances. I'm tall and broad-shouldered so they seem OK for me, but then I'm going to be using this for car commuting. - The very front has a zipper that leads to a narrow and surprisingly deep compartment. If you have large hands, your hand will just barely fit inside there. I'm not entirely sure would that compartment would be good for, storage-wise, because things could get lost down there. Glasses, perhaps, though there's a nice fleece-lined pocket at the top between the two large compartments that would better for those. The good: This thing will hold everything you could possibly need unless you're lugging entire sets of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The second large compartment (the one without the laptop sleeve) seems like it could hold a 5-6 inch stack of stuff - certainly enough to handle a full day at college or a change of clothes if you're traveling. There's a fold-down flap that helps hold that space open. Side compartments should hold smallish bottles of water, there are even zipper compartments that might hold a small umbrella. Same problem as that narrow front zipper compartment though: don't put anything in there that might drop down and be hard to retrieve. The padding feels pretty good across the back. There's a nifty "hidden" zipper compartment along the back padding which could hold some small things. I wouldn't suggest putting things like glasses in there (the pressure of the bag might break them), but for emergency cash or even a small wallet, it would to nicely. The front zipper area looks to be just the right size for an iPad or other tablet. I haven't tried this yet - I don't have an iPad, but my Nook Color fits there nicely.
