LTT backpack too small for my laptop - reccomendations?

[limmers2015]

Hi everyone!

I'm a sophomore Mechanical Engineering student who just picked up a Lenovo P72 laptop (17.3" 1080p, i7-8850H, 32GB DDR4-2400, Quadro P3200 6GB) off eBay. This is so I can do much more intensive engineering tasks around campus and out at SAE events (I'm a project leader in the school's SAE BAJA team) more easily without being tied to my desktop (27" 1080p + 21.5" 1080p + 2x17" 1280x1024, R7-3700x, 64GB DDR4-3600, GTX 1070, 280GB Optane) as well as have enough display real-estate to make multi-document productivity work actually reasonable. The school's provided 13" HP Elitebook Dragonfly G2 was not cutting it in any respect and was too heavily/poorly managed by them, so rather than go to war with them over controlling a rather poorly suited laptop I figured I'd just get my own better one. I would've loved to just remote into my desktop to avoid the need for such a powerful laptop but the school's network is configured in such a way that doing so while maintaining anything below 400ms of round-trip latency was impossible and even that was unreliable so here we are.

I'm now looking to find a nice durable backpack I can actually put this beast and my other MecE gear in, and wanted to get y'alls suggestions. I would love to just get an LTT backpack (been meaning to grab a screwdriver and some other LTT merch for a while now), but the laptop sleeves are too small for my machine (mine measures 16.38"W x 11.06"D x 1.16"H while the backpack is only good for up to 15.5"W x 11.25"D x 1.25"H, maybe I could cram it in but I'd really prefer not to for the sake of both the bag and machine).

Whatever I end up with needs to fit my chonk laptop including charger plus some notebooks/pencils/TI-85, my caliper/micrometer set, some screwdrivers/other basic tools, and possibly a 17" portable external monitor or 2 (if I can find any for really good deals, otherwise I'll just grab the free 22" 1080p TV I got from the discard pile on campus and lug it under my arm like I have been already).

Do any of you have suggestions of bags you have had good luck with? As long as its not totally obnoxious I don't really care how it looks (although the more "military" it is the better since I have some MOLLE accessories I'd love to use with it. It's gotta be durable above all else, just my normal backpack load with the 13" HP in the school's provided Targus bag wore 1.5" long holes thru the bottom corners in my first year there.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts y'all have, I took one look at the eBay results when I went looking and noped out of there because anything good was buried under all the garbage my pretty generic search turned up.

[LogicalDrm]

Reading this, I would advise not lugging all that on your back. Get something on wheels. Thought problem is size of your things. Just fitting 17" laptop which is not aimed to be carried anywhere (it's designed to be desktop alternative) to bags is challenging. Here's Targus' option https://eu.targus.com/collections/laptop-roller-bags/products/citygear-15-173-roller-laptop-case-black-tcg717gl

Targus has also backbags that can fit larger laptops. Though the total weight of your backbag should not be over 10kg.

[limmers2015]

I agree that it's not ideal to carry all of that on my back, however the places I go on campus have either no or very poor-condition sidewalks and are also full of stairs that have no elevator counterparts, so I'd be carrying a rolling bag a lot of the time anyways to keep it out of the mud, over broken sidewalks, and/or on the stairs. I also work on a farm so I'm used to carrying a lot of heavy stuff (it's not unusual for me to be walking around the farm with 50-60lbs of tools either on my back or carried in my arms).

[limmers2015]

2 hours ago, htimsenyawed said:

 

I carried an LL Bean backpack from 2003 to 2010 and it didn't show any signs of wear.

Any specific suggestions? They're not listed on bean's website with laptop pocket dimensions, only with overall bag dimensions, so I have no idea what fits. Even looking at their largest ones like https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/124379 which are shown with what appear to be 16" macbooks it doesn't seem like my thicker and much more rectangular 17" would fit. There is a physical store about an hour away from me I could go to and try them out but most of their backpacks are not in stock at that location.

[limmers2015]

3 hours ago, htimsenyawed said:

Have you tried contacting their support to see which bag they suggest?

I haven't, will give that a shot, in my experience usually their reps are helpful but not knowledgeable but I'll roll the dice again and see what I can turn up.

[limmers2015]

4 hours ago, htimsenyawed said:

They may not have the color you want in this model, but this backpack in the specs lists - Separate padded laptop compartment; accommodates most laptops up to 17".

That seems like it would work just fine, thank you so much! I'll call my local(ish) location once they actually open later this morning (it's 1am as I'm writing this) and see if they are able to order one in so I can actually put my machine in there before I buy one.

[limmers2015]

I couldn't agree more. Got a bean shirt and pants on right now actually, their stuff has always served my entire extended family well, just sometimes the support staff (especially in recent years) has been a bit lackluster.