You need a bag. Tech travelers are jugglers—not just of the inevitable laptop, but of the chargers, cables, readers, USB sticks, and MicroSD cards that make up a full work kit. Here at PCMag and some of our NetShelter sister sites, we travel constantly to conferences and press events with heavy tech loads, so we've seen the good, the bag, and the ugly. These five bags are our current picks for connected travelers. For our five bags, we've gone for diversity: high-end and midrange backpacks, a messenger bag, a duffel, and a tote. Living in the tech world, we tend to lean away from the more traditional travel brands like Samsonite and Tumi, and towards brands like Ogio and Booq with a long history focusing on technology. And yes, you can get a less expensive, decent bag. There are innumerable decent $40 bags out there. But even the Wirecutter, which reviews bags more comprehensively than anyone else, seems to believe that $120-$150 is the sweet spot for a high-quality bag nowadays.

1. Our Editor's Choice for a laptop backpack right now is the Ogio Commuter 15 . It's slim, roomy, comfortable, stylish and affordable, and it costs well under $100 on Amazon, making it a broadly democratic choice for a travel bag. It fits under an airline seat, and the flip-up flap makes it easy to get at the dedicated laptop and tablet pockets if you need to take your electronics out at a checkpoint. 2. If price is no object, I'm currently in love with the Booq Cobra Pack. It has a somewhat terrifying list price of $295, but it's an amazing tech travel companion, with segregated, padded laptop and tablet sections along the back. It's gloriously padded, highly water resistant, and roomy enough for a full day's change of clothes along with all of your gadgets and chargers. You can also keep your phone in a pocket on the shoulder strap. That's what I'm traveling with now. The less-expensive Booq boa shift ($150) includes a lot of similar features, including those great shoulder-strap pockets and dedicated laptop pocket, but with a bit less room, structure, and style.

3. I'm not personally a big fan of messenger bags for tech travel, because the weight distribution really begins to wear after an hour standing on line in the airport. But if you like them, we prefer the ECBC Zeus Messenger Bag . It has a conservative, office-friendly design, a wide array of organizational pockets to keep things secure, and a useful flap to attach it to the handle of a rolling bag. Our sister sites GearDiary and ChipChick do more bag reviews than we do here at PCMag, and they often look at things from the perspective of female business travelers, which I'm not. 4. ChipChick recommends the Hex Century Overnight Travel Bag ($129.95) as a more fashion-forward, carry-on duffel for weekend trips. It's roomy enough for a few days' worth of clothing, and has dedicated exterior pockets for a tablet, laptop, and chargers, so you can swiftly pull them out at the checkpoint. It's also a canvas twill bag rather than the nylon our PCMag picks tend to use, giving it a much more organic feel.

5. For a more tote-style bag, GearDiary gives high marks to the Waterfield Vertigo 2.0 ($129). It's a classy distressed-canvas tote which comes in three different sizes for different laptops. yonghwa backpackThere's a laptop protecting sleeve and room for a charger and a phone. backpack inpakken thailandThe only down side with a bag like this, for my travel, is that it's really only for what you're using on the plane; borderlands backpack hackyou'll need to bring your clothes and such in your rollaboard.ula circuit backpack saleThe eBags Professional Slim Laptop Backpack ($109.99) is made for the traveling pro who doesn't travel anywhere without a laptop, a tablet, several smartphones, and the accessories and AC adapters for all of them. sarma backpack

It's not trendy-looking like the Ogio Commuter 15 or the Booq Cobra Pack; rather, it's a flexible, stylish case with lots of well-thought-out features that make business travel easier.m53 backpack Design and Features The Professional Slim Laptop Backpack presents a no-nonsense business face while you're commuting (though we could certainly see it on campus, as well); backpack blower foggerit's available in Solid Black (like our review unit), Brushed Indigo (dark blue), and Heathered Graphite (gray), and interior panels are bright safety orange in all three versions. Made of woven polyester fabric, the bag feels sturdy, and the fabric's Teflon coating repels water effectively. Rain beads up and rolls down the bag's surface, as off of a waxed car body or the proverbial duck's back. The backpack is sized between a compact bag and an overnighter, measuring 18.5 by 12.75 by 7.5 inches (HWD), and it weighs 3.8 pounds.

That's a bit thicker and heavier than the Ogio Commuter 15 and the Hedgren Connect Junction Backpack, which translates into more storage space, but it will stick out farther on your back and could get snagged if you commute through tight quarters like the New York or Tokyo subways. The bag comes with a lifetime warranty. You pull out and clip the shoulder straps to eyelets attached to the bottom to use the bag as a backpack. According to the eBags website, this feature was implemented at the request of customers, and it does let you convert the bag between a laptop and a briefcase. When attached, the padded shoulder straps are wide and comfortable, with an adjustable sternum strap for security. When the straps are stowed, the bag looks more like a lawyer's satchel or computer technician's briefcase than a laptop backpack. This gives you added flexibility, but the swiveling clips on the straps can get caught on things like headphone wires, and are an extra point of failure, in my opinion.

Beefy strap handles on the top and left sides come into play when you're using the case as a briefcase, or stowing it in the overhead compartment or under your seat on a plane. Like the Hedgren Connect Junction Backpack, the eBags backpack has several configurable compartments. The main laptop sleeve is padded, can accommodate a 15- or 17-inch laptop, and has an L-shaped zipper for easy access when using the bag as a briefcase or backpack. Next, there's a separate zippered section for papers and incidentals like binders. An integrated pouch in this compartment holds papers or magazines securely. In between, there is a vertical tablet compartment that's lined with a microfiber fleece material that can help keep your tablet screen smudge-free. The zipper pulls on these compartments have loops so you can secure all three with one luggage lock. On the front of the bag, you'll find a compartment with slots for pens, business cards, small hand sanitizer bottles, your portable Wi-Fi hotspot, and many of the other knick-knacks you carry every day.

The zipper pulls on this compartment are also lockable. Another small zippered compartment on the front flap is handy for boarding passes, a couple of granola bars, or the like. There's a water bottle pocket on the side, with its own zipper to keep it out of the way when not in use. The back of the case has a panel with four slits (two parallel vertical, two parallel horizontal), through which you can slip the handle of your wheelie bag to relieve some of the pressure on your back while you walk through an airport terminal. This uncommon feature may be worth the cost of the bag, especially if you've tried to balance a laptop bag on your suitcase while rushing to catch a flight. Down near the bottom of the bag is what eBags calls an AC adapter garage. It's a crush-proof, removable compartment, like a dopp kit, and is accessible from the front of the bag. It also has locking loops on the zipper pulls, which means you'll need three luggage locks in total. The garage is an open space where you can stow bulky items like a pair of foldable flat shoes, AC adapters for your laptop and phone, or mobile battery packs.

Once the adapter garage is removed, you can fit more in the middle (papers) compartment if you wish. Performance and Conclusion Without removing the garage or the laptop compartment spacer in the backpack, I was able to fit an 11-inch laptop, a 13-inch laptop, a 9.7-inch tablet, an external SSD, a couple of magazines, some papers, a portable first aid kit, a foldable windbreaker, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, a compact umbrella, a multi tool, two Mophie portable USB batteries, a handheld fan, a bag of AA batteries, three granola bars, a one-liter water bottle, a pair of sunglasses in a rigid case, two set of earbuds (also in rigid cases), as well as all the necessary AC adapters and cables. Sure, the bag weighed more than 25 pounds and I could hear the clips on the shoulder straps straining, but it survived several trips to and from the office without a problem. Under my regular daily commute conditions (omitting the laptops, paperwork, magazines, water bottle, and half of the AC adapters), the bag was comfortable and easy to manage.