Smatree
We sell both and we would rather you bought the right one once. The honest split is not about how expensive your laptop is. It is about whether the case is the outermost thing you carry, and what is travelling next to it.
Take a sleeve if the case goes inside another bag
A sleeve is thin, light and disappears inside a rucksack that already has a shape of its own. If your machine lives in a bag with a padded compartment and a couple of books, the sleeve is there to stop abrasion and the occasional press, and that is a job it does well.
What a sleeve will not do
Stop a set of keys driving into the lid, or a water bottle landing on it when the bag goes down. Soft padding spreads a load; it does not refuse one.
Take a hard shell if the case is the outer layer
Carried on its own, a case meets table edges, door frames, car boots and the floor. A moulded EVA shell with built-up corners is the difference between a scuff and a dented lid, and it is the only version of this product that stands up on a shelf empty.
And if the bag is shared
A rucksack with a laptop, a lunch, a bottle and a tool roll is a hostile place. Hard shell, every time — the threat is not the drop, it is the other contents.
The middle answer
A shoulder bag or an UrbanEdge case is a hard shell with the handle, strap and outer pocket already attached. If you keep putting a sleeve inside a tote because the sleeve has nowhere to grab, that middle shape is the one you actually wanted.
Weight and bulk, honestly
A hard shell adds a few hundred grams and about a centimetre on each face. On a daily commute you notice it for a week and then you do not. In hand luggage measured to the centimetre, it is worth checking before you buy.
A stand case if the desk keeps changing
If you work in cafés, hotels and other people's offices, the lid-into-a-wedge pattern removes a separate object from your bag and puts the screen at a height your neck prefers. It is the one feature people tell us they did not expect to use daily and then do.