Wenger Ibex 17 inch Laptop Backpack, Men's and Women's Laptop Bag, Black/Gray/Blue

i replaced an older year old one i gave to my brother. very sturdy, excellent quality. theyve also solved a lot of the tight pocket issues i had with the older year old bag, and it is more accessible and easier to use the multiple pockets. it is also very comfortable and cushioned. the multiple compartments mean the bag is great for work or as a laptop bag, but not as easy for say your next vacation to carry clothes...but definitely improved.

I previously owned the Wenger Swiss Gear Synergy GA-7305-14 for just over 3 years. That bag was amazing, except it couldn't "properly" hold my new 17" laptop. Hence the purchase of this Swiss Gear Ibex backpack. Just to show what kind of quality Wenger puts into their backpacks, I took everything out of my old Wenger Synergy backpack and compared them side by side and I could barely tell a difference between the new bag and the old bag. I lugged the Synergy around everywhere I went for just about every day of the year (literally) for over 3 years. Been through airports, on buses, and even on long treks across the Vegas strip (at a convention in Las Vegas) and it's no worse for the wear. So when I needed a larger backpack and Wenger had one, it was a no brainer for me. I've had the Ibex for a little over a month now and it's doing great. It has TONS of room for everything. My freakin' life is in that bag. I carry my Dell M6400 17" laptop workstation, three external Hard Drives, the power brick for the Dell M6400 (and it is literally the size of a brick), copies of the main software packages that I use (Autodesk Inventor, Visual Studio, MS Office 2007, etc.), Digital Calipers, regular paper notebook billfold, a set of computer screwdrivers, pens and pencils... I could keep going, but you get the point. The Dell M6400 fits perfectly inside the laptop holding pocket and the zippers don't rub on the corners of the laptop when you zip the bag up. The bag is actually more comfortable to wear than the Synergy (I don't know why that is... but it just is). The materials and workmanship are top notch and highly durable. My only complaint would be that the side "open" pockets were designed differently than the Synergy. The top of the opening is sloping away from the person wearing the backpack. These pockets are used for carrying a waterbottle or something that the person wearing it would need "quick access" to, without dismounting the backpack. The direction of the slope makes it difficult to get the waterbottle (etc.) out and also to put it back. Final conclusion: A great 17" laptop backpack! Well worth the money.

Way back in 2010 I had bought this book bag from another website for about $80 which was $10 cheaper than retail sites in my area. I do not like to change book bags every year for school. I would rather have one that is durable and lasts for the long haul and fits everything I need. So, since these bags are exactly the same I can tell you that it made it through my 9th-12th (2010-2014) grade career and then through four years of college. This is an amazing bag and works perfect for me. The computer pouch is a winner because it fits my 17” laptop and protects it. Now a few flaws this bag will see over the use of time: The self standing up feature will soon get worn out due to the weight of books bending the cardboard like shelf built in. No biggi. The next noticble thing is the load shocks. Haha you will have so much packed in that bag, you might as well scrap that idea. They are stretched to the max but I guess it does help if you got a hop in your walk. I don’t know, guess if you walk around with noting in the bag they would work great but you put about 3 good sized textbooks in there and a binder (by the way is a tight fit) those little shocks on the shoulder straps are screaming. Next will be the bottom corners. After setting it down and sliding it into place the corners get to be worn out drastically causing the threads to be exposed weakening the bottom. Along with this thank the external weight the bottom will begin to rip at the seam. Another spot that rips is around the support for the cable handel from grabbing the bag up with a super load over time (I had it all sewed up and worked fine for another couple years)! The cable handel which is a real eye catcher for people (they are like wow, is that a cable in there!?!) haha but again over many years the metal on the cable edges will become tarnished. The rubber/plastic handel covering the cable starts to break apart from the weight of picking the bag up loaded. The backing of this bag that is supposed to be bratheable... If you live in the South and the humidity is on 1000% you can for get it... I guess if air shot down your back as you walk it would be breathable. The bottom pad of the back which rests around the belt line I noticed that it can wear cotton shirts out from the rubbing of the material on softer cotton shirts (I just noticed the little lint balls forming on my shirts in that area). I’m talking t-shirts not dress. The little plastic caps on the end of the straps tend to get in the way. I still have them on mine but teachers really had a hard time on the tile floors in schools when they wouldn’t watch where they were stepping and they would slip up on them... none never fell thankfully but it scared them for sure. Growing older it will get caught in the door jam of cars so you will slam that door on it. Just got to watch that... The compartments: Laptop pitch is padded. The small puch where the cable handel is where I like to stick a charger and candies for class haha. Large compartment as covered earlier can become a tight fit. If it’s full of books and stuff it probably won’t fit that jacket you were wearing during the morning. A little shoving for effort may be an option though. Basically if you pack that main compartment the other 2 front ones become useless for books with great thickness. The medium sized pocket I kept napkins in (there’s a netted ziper pouch). The little pouch on the front was pens, pencils, highlighters, germ x, usb drive, extra erasers, extra led, and one of those t-98 something calculators. Never had a problem there. Always knew where everything was, you can find stuff in the dark if you organize it right. Bottom line I’ve have this bag going on 8 years now and counting. I got this for a back up for when my primary bag completely tells me it’s done. I am certain they are exactly the same bag and quality. Will buy again but I believe this will last a lifetime now that I am done with school and it will not be used daily. It will be used for over night stays for work and travel now.

I was looking for a backpack to carry around my 17" laptop for a 2 week trip to Brazil, where my usual laptop carrying case would have screamed "Please mug me, I have a laptop!" It was great for that purpose, and now that I'm back home I find myself using this backpack more and more, as it is simply an awesome bag. First, it does as advertised: it fits my 17" laptop perfectly and although I haven't thrown the bag around to test its padding, it seems more than adequate for normal use. My guess is that your laptop would likely survive a decent fall in this backpack; certainly much better than if you just dropped it in a bag without any padding. But what really makes this a great bag is that it does more than just this. First, it is extremely comfortable, even with large amounts of weight in the backpack (sometimes when I take it off and lift it by the handle I realize it's much heavier than it feels when carrying it on your back!). The padding on the back is also designed to keep the weight of the backpack from sitting squarely on your back (allowing you to more easily avoid that uncomfortable and unattractive "sweaty backpack back" syndrome). It also can carry a lot in its multiple pockets and pouches. I can easily fit my laptop and accessories, camera and accessories, books, papers, folders, etc., etc. with room to spare, making it handy for work and travel (I actually see a good number of people in business suits toting these around airports, which looks a bit silly but speaks volumes about its comfort and utility!). And even when carrying quite a bit, the backpack doesn't look as huge and grossly overstuffed as some backpacks can when you're carrying a lot. I love the sturdy, reinforced handle (a feature I enjoy since the handle of my last "regular" backpack quickly became frayed and anytime anyone went near my backpack I had to reflexively shout "don't-lift-it-by-the-handle!!!" to avoid disaster). It looks nice but also doesn't scream "there's a laptop inside!". The bigger issue is that it's become so popular that many people (i.e. thieves) probably know that it does likely have a laptop inside. I could go on and on, but would only be repeating what others have said. Just get this bag!

Good for protection of your computer, lots of pockets. A bit havey when empty

I chose the Ibex laptop backpack after searching for a while which backpack would best hold the kind of stuff I may find myself carrying around. And so far I'm very happy with it. On a recent business trip, I found myself carrying two 15 inch laptops (plus power cords), a collapsing fan cooling mat, a mouse, phone charger, my janitor style lotsa-keys key ring, some pens and pencils, a notebook, two textbooks (one average, one smaller, both paperbacks), and 4 spiralbound training manuals. Add it all up, and my bathroom scale says the backpack and contents weighed * 33.5 lbs *. Yea, it was a little hard to get off the floor and onto my shoulders (I'm a computer nerd, not a body builder), but once up and on it was pretty comfortable. Some people say a clip to hold the two shoulder straps together across the chest would be an improvement, but somehow this worked well for me and I did not find myself wishing for that, but I wouldn't refuse it either. (Somehow I managed to escape getting a !third! laptop myself on my last business trip. Whew!) It has more compartments than my second choice, the Pegasus also from Wenger. Ibex has one more large compartment area, which is what sold me on this over the Pegasus. My two laptops are a Dell Latitude E6530 and a Lenovo Thinkpad T530. With this much weight to be carried around, the Wenger steel cable handles look sturdy. Hopefully they really are sturdy, and not just for show. I'd be afraid that some brands with weaker looking top handles would tear off when I picked this all up. As for carrying two laptops, there is only one cushioned sleeve for one laptop, and so I plan to get a sleeve to put the second laptop into when in the bag as well. At the airport, it was relatively easy to pull both laptops out of the bag and get them into individual Xray bins, and then return them to their backpack compartment. I put both laptops together in the zippered section directly against my back when wearing it, everything else was in other zippered areas, so no fiddling to get the computers out and leave the paper stuff in. I've tried my wife's Dell Inspiron 17R (7720) laptop fits nicely, and she is considering an Ibex for herself, as she expects to find herself carrying around two laptops as well, and the usual shoulder-bag style laptop case isn't going to work for her with that much weight. Her second laptop is a 15 inch HP of some sort. While on the trip, this bag and its contents rolled off of the pile in the back of the group SUV and hit the ground, twice. One laptop suffered enough force to pop a case edge clip loose, and also pop a corner of the keyboard loose. I popped them back into place and all is well. The other laptop has no known effects from the falls. So, I'm quite happy with this backpack. I can carry both my work computer and my own computer, some textbooks for university, notebook, and misc stuff that one tends to find in many laptop bags. I expect to find myself with a lot of stuff in it at times, and so far it seems to be holding up quite well. Hopefully my back does the same. :)

First gripe is with Amazon, Primary item images do not match the description. Even then, the description is DIFFERENT in 3 different places in the listing describing current prior iterations of this IBEX backpack. Also, this is NOT the original or anything like the original IBEX 17" backpack we all loved so much over the decades. This is now fully replaced with the so called TSA friendly SmartScan Lay Flat where the entire back flips open. You can't even open it half way because the zipper will just fly open smacking the laptop down. Amazon shows the original style in main pictures and describes the original back several times as well along with the Smartscan so no idea what you are getting. You will get the SmartScan. I have had 2 IBEX backpacks over last 20 years, SOLID bag but this is not that. I don't know what this is. They got rid of all the good things (like the inside zipped pocket in front and holders, the large rear section is gone and replaced with a TSA friend flap etc. Quality is also now questionable, using inferior materials AND WARRANTY IS CUT DOWN FROM 10 YEARS TO 5 YEARS.....because apparently, Wenger no longer has the same confidence in this bag as it used to. Zippers are of inferior quality, the base is no longer reinforced and may other shortcuts taken to save cost. That's fine but you gotta pass that saving down and let the people know they are buying a a now inferior product that is cheaper. I'm posting one picture comparing the same compartment and it's zippers, it says all that needs to be said for this "upgraded" bag. On the left is the now 15 yr old bag, looks/functions like new, except the plastic clip for the strap broke in half so longer works as backpack. I'd rather tie it up and use the older bag than use this new bag that will be a miracle if it lasts a year or two. Shame on Wenger for taking arguably one of the best bags ever made and turning it into basic China off brand you can buy for $30 on here (I'd argue they might even be better now). Nice job killing an iconic bag.

I've been using this backpack for the better part of 2-3 years now and it has served me well the entire time. My Dell XPS 17, which is a pretty chunky media center laptop with an extended battery jutting out, fits snugly but securely in the laptop portion. The laptop section is well-padded, and has protected my computer despite some hard drops. The remaining space is smartly portioned, the main pocket has a small divider that is useful for holding smaller items like laptop chargers or cables, with the remaining space large enough to hold 1-2 textbooks. The smaller pockets have spots for pens and zippered sections to hold cash or any other valuables you may have. Overall quality is exceptional. The backpack has come with me on trips to Europe, has been thrown around car trunks and back seats, and has had a few beverages spill inside it, and it still looks as new as the day I got it. Unlike many laptop bags, the back is generously padded, making it comfortable to wear for long periods of time. The grab handle uses the same kind of material you might find on a bike lock, but with a rubber grip around it to make it easy to hold, while the secondary handle works great when hanging it on a hook... especially useful when you find yourself in an airport bathroom, but also good if you want to hang it up at home, too. The only quibbles I have with the bag are the headphone pass through (never used it, especially with my phone always staying in my pocket) and the two drink holders on the side. Don't plan on carrying a 32oz beverage, as even inserting a 20oz bottle requires a bit of force. On the flip side, while it's a tight fit, it does ensure the bottle won't fall out. That aside, this is easily the best backpack I've ever used. My ex went through a freebie backpack that she got from HP with her laptop and then trashed a JanSport as well in the space of a couple years. Neither of those came close to this bag in comfort, features, or quality. I would recommend this to anyone.