Backpacks | Smatree

Packs built around a laptop first

A backpack that happens to have a laptop pocket is a different object from a pack designed around the machine. Ours start with a hard-topped well, suspended off the base so setting the pack down does not set the machine down with it.

Weight on the hips

Padded back panel, shaped straps, and a load that sits high and close. A pack carrying a laptop and a charger is heavier than it looks, and where that weight rides decides whether you notice it after an hour.

Water and the walk from the car

The outer shell sheds rain. It is not a dry bag — nothing on this site is — but the machine stays dry on the walk from the car park to the building, which is the weather these packs actually meet.

What goes where

A hard top compartment for the fragile things, a flat organiser panel for cables and a pass, side pockets that take a bottle without pressing into the laptop well, and a pass-through strap for a trolley handle.

The seam that tears

Strap anchors, riveted through a doubled panel. On a full pack that is the joint under load, and stitching into a single layer is how bags fail.

Questions about this shelf

How many patterns are on this shelf?

8 at the moment, in 15.6, 16 and 18 inch. The count moves as we draw new patterns and retire old moulds — we do not keep a listing alive once the mould is gone.

How do I narrow it down to my machine?

Use the row of makes above the grid. Each one filters the shelf to cases that were measured against that make, which is faster than reading titles and more reliable than matching a diagonal.

Are two cases with the same size the same case?

Usually not. Where two entries share a number they were drawn around different machines — the inch figure is the screen, and the pattern is the body.

What if nothing here fits?

Write to us with the exact model name. We will tell you which pattern comes closest, or that we have not drawn one, which is an answer we give more often than you would expect.