When replacing my old high-school Kipling backpack with a new backpack, I didn’t thought I would use that new backpack even longer than the 12 years I used the Kipling. I didn’t use that for work - I don’t really remember that well, but I don’t think I used that Samsonite Pro-DLX 3 shoulder bag that long, and have replaced it with a Samsonite Pro-DLX 3 backpack around 2011 - I still use that backpack as my main work backpack, although I am searching for a somewhat smaller and lighter bag, as nowadays I travel by train instead of car, and as I don’t go daily to the office anymore, I have less need of dragging a lot of things with me.

Anyway, for almost all my non-work related activities I used my other backpack - I don’t know the type unfortunately. But some time ago, one of the zippers failed, so unfortunately we had to search for a replacement.

My wife already had bought an Eastpak - but I find the fitting ’less than optimal’ (and the chosen colorway not my cup of tea), so not something to wear for a full day.

So, last year, we bought a The North Face Fall Line. The quality of the bag is superb, but I really don’t like the size: it is way to tall, way to shallow (only 15 cm), and not that wide. So, in practice you just can’t fit much into it when walking in the city, even though it is quite a bit and heavy bag. So, in practice, we still used the old backpack much more often.

But last week, when we were on holiday, we went into a bag shop in Hengelo (we had some time to spare), and we just bumped into a (hopefully) perfect replacement: the Samsonite Roader Laptop Backpack M (in Dark Blue).

It is in my opinion not a great laptop backpack: the sleeve is not really padded, doesn’t seem to have a false bottom. It doesn’t stand on its own, doesn’t have internal compartments for your accessories. But I guess that nowadays every bag needs to have a laptop sleeve in it…. So don’t really know why they market it as a laptop backpack, but anyway, for that usecase I have better bags.

Size is similar - we also checked the L variant, but that one becomes a bit bulky, so we determined that the M is the sweet spot for our usecase - with similar dimensions, not that sturdy, etc.

After we bought it and started using it, we’re already more than happy with it. So, hopefully this backpack will also last 18 years!