Welcome to Bag Week 2018. Every year your faithful friends at TechCrunch spend an entire week looking at bags. Why? Because bags — often ignored but full of our important electronics — are the outward representations of our techie styles, and we put far too little thought into where we keep our most prized possessions.
Leather bags are the best bags. That’s a fact. Pad & Quill has been making some fine leather products for years and the new Heritage Leather Satchel is stunning. I love it.
This bag is constructed out of tough leather. It’s thick, well conditioned and sturdy. It smells like a artisanal boot store in Austin, Texas and that’s the best smell in the world. That’s also a fact.
The bag is styled in a modern craftsmen look. It doesn’t exactly look like a horse riding bag, but it approaches the look with exposed contrasting stitching and roll top design. I dig it, but it might not be for everyone. There are other leather satchels from Pad & Quill that forgo the stitching for a cleaner, hipper look. For me, it’s a nice balance of frontier charm and modern lines.
There’s plenty of room inside the bag. During my time testing the Heritage Satchel, I was easily able to fit my 15-inch MacBook Pro, a couple of books and a DSLR in the bag without it bulging at the seams. And yet, even when I wasn’t carrying the camera, the bag didn’t feel too large just to hold a laptop and notebook. That’s a delicate dance and this bag performs it well. It’s not too big and not too small.
Inside is a laptop sleeve and a zippered pouch. That’s it. It feels a bit spartan for a bag of this size and I wish there was at least couple pen loops and a keychain lanyard.
There’s a newspaper pocket on the backside below the handle. It’s perfect for carrying a magazine, or you know, a newspaper.
The bag lets me down with the hardware. The hardware feels of a lower quality than the leather. The clasps and rivets on the straps just feel cheap but so far during my weeks with the bag they’ve performed without issue.
This is a solid bag that I completely recommend. It’s a great size, able to hold most everything I threw at it while not being too big to carry even when lightly packed. After a few months with the bag, it’s aged nicely and is starting to feel like a well-worn pair of denim jeans. The leather is still delicious and seems durable enough to withstand a person’s daily grind.
Photos taken at Cafe Rhema in Flint, MI where they make a killer iced latte.
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