Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I really wanted to like this bag, but unfortunately I just can't live with it's many flaws. First, as mentioned by several other reviewers, the handle on the bag is not centered, causing the bag to hang at an unusual and uncomfortable angle when carrying it by the handle. I thought maybe the other reviewers didn't realize it's called a 'messenger' bag because it's supposed to be worn over the shoulder messenger style. What I didn't realize was that when a bag has a handle on it, sometimes you just use it because it's convenient. Like when I'm taking the bag off my shoulder to lay down, I use the handle. However, because the handle is offset, when I try to lay the bag down on it's back side, I have to swing the bag out and plop it down quickly or it tends to want to lay on it's front because of the angle it hangs at. This, by itself, is not completely unacceptable, but this coupled with the lack of padding on the back of the laptop compartment means my laptop is susceptible to damaged every time I set it down to remove the laptop. This brings me to another major issue I have, which is that the laptop compartment is not padded on the back side. The front, sides, and bottom are padded, but the back is just a thin piece of canvas. There is a pouch for papers behind the laptop compartment, and there is a small padded area sewn onto the outside of the back of the bag, but there is no other back padding. This made the bag unusable for me. I bought a laptop bag to protect my laptop. The lack of padding on the back side of the laptop compartment was a deal-breaker - the ONE thing a laptop bag should do best is protect the laptop, and this bag utterly fails at that. Further, I also ignored the warning that the strap connector didn't swivel, which causes the strap connector to disconnect unexpectedly. I thought surely the people this happened to were just not very bright. Well, if that's true, then count me among the less intelligent because it happened to me too... almost immediately. I grabbed the bag out of my back seat on my way in to work one morning and the strap was tangled. In my efforts to untangle the strap the connector disengaged and the bag tumbled to the ground. Fortunately I 'caught' the laptop bag with my foot before it hit the pavement, which prevented any damage to my MacBook Pro. All I did was untwist the strap half a turn, and it fell to the ground. If you've ever used a messenger bag you know that a twisted strap is a very common occurrence - with a reasonably designed bag, you just untwist it, but with this bag that action can destroy your laptop. That was the day I decided that I just couldn't live with such a poorly designed laptop bag and I ordered a new, hopefully better designed bag: Targus CityGear Miami Messenger Case for 17 Inch Notebooks TCG200 (Black with Grey). I wanted to like the bag, and I wanted the other negative reviews to be rare anomalies. I'm sorry to say that they weren't and this is just a poorly designed bag which is not suitable for somebody who takes their laptop with them frequently. I can't recommend this bag for anybody... not if you value your laptop.