Work tote bags with a laptop compartment, from nylon to leather

The one tote here built like a backpack, with a tougher fabric sewn in only where the bag touches the floor.

Native Union made the W.F.A Tote Bag Pro after its W.F.A Backpack, the initials standing for Work From Anywhere, and kept that bag's materials while dropping its shape. The body is a soft-touch canvas spun entirely from recycled plastic bottles, about 24 of them per bag by Native Union's count. The bottom panel is Cordura.

Cordura is a trademark for a family of nylon fabrics woven to resist abrasion, and it costs more than the canvas around it. Spending it only on the base is the logic of the whole bag: the panel that gets set down on station platforms and café floors is the one that wears, so that is where the hard fabric goes. The rest has a water-resistant finish, reinforced seams and YKK zips.

The bag is 35 cm tall, 37 cm across and 11.5 cm deep. It holds 16 litres, and empty it comes to 800 g. The padded sleeve takes a laptop or tablet up to 16 inches and closes with a button and a loop of cord, so a laptop stays put when the bag tips on a seat.

Native Union laid out the inside like a tech pouch. Elastic loops hold cables and a charger, a hidden pocket fits a Bluetooth tracker, and a key leash and a holder for a bottle up to 80 mm across sit in the main pocket. A zipped pocket outside takes a phone or a card.

The straps are thick organic cotton, treated against stains, which matters on a bag that spends its day on the floor beside a desk. Native Union covers it with a two-year limited warranty.

Five centimetres deep, and cut to the size of a sheet of A3 paper.

memobottle built its name on flat water bottles drawn to paper sizes, and the A3 Daily Tote is the bag those bottles were waiting for. The face is 297 by 420 mm, exactly an A3 sheet, and the bag is 50 mm deep. That is less than half the depth of anything else here. The bottles explain the shape: an A5 memobottle holds 750 ml and lies flat against a laptop, so the bag has no need for the round bottle pocket that makes most totes bulge.

There are pockets cut for the A5, A6 and A7 bottles, 750, 375 and 180 ml, plus a padded pocket for a laptop or tablet up to 16 inches and a hidden pocket for a passport or keys. The body is 100 per cent recycled nylon, a figure memobottle is careful to say leaves out the hardware and the handles.

At 550 g it is the lightest tote here by 150 g. memobottle publishes no capacity in litres, and the thin profile is the reason: what a bag this flat carries depends on what lies in it, not on how much it swallows.

The handles detach. memobottle gives every measurement behind them: a 185 mm drop, 130 mm between the two straps and 578 mm of strap each. That drop is the shortest here. It sits on the shoulder over a shirt and is happiest in the hand over a winter coat.

It comes in Eucalypt, Paperbark and Black Ash, and carries a two-year warranty. The flat shape suits a laptop, a notebook and a bottle. A packed lunch and a jumper want one of the deeper bags below.

Cotton canvas that goes in the washing machine, because of a film coating on the inside.

The Everyday Small Tote is a 15 litre bag in 100 per cent cotton with a TPU coating. TPU is thermoplastic polyurethane, a thin flexible plastic film, and July bonds it to the inside face of the canvas. The outside keeps the dry, matte feel of cotton. The inside wipes clean, so a coffee spilt in the bag stays on the lining and does not soak through to your shirt. The webbing is cotton too, and the hardware is brushed gold, or silver on the black.

At 38 cm across, 29 cm tall and 12 cm deep, it weighs 750 g. The laptop pocket is padded with ribs, not a flat sheet of foam, and July sizes it for a 14-inch MacBook Pro still in its cover. A 15-inch laptop needs a bigger sleeve than this one.

July orders the pockets by how fast you need them. QuickPass is a magnetic pocket with no zip, for a passport or a phone at a gate. Inside there is a zipped hanging pocket and an open one, and there is another pocket on the front. A top zip closes the bag, and a band on the back slides over a suitcase handle.

Carried by the handles the drop is 25 cm, 6.5 cm more than the memobottle's and enough to clear a coat on the shoulder. The detachable strap runs from 76 to 124 cm, so the same bag goes short on the shoulder or across the body. July also makes a Large version of the same design, for a load past 15 litres.

Every inside pocket sits at the same height, so a hand reaching in finds them all in one pass.

Bellroy calls the layout an internal toolbelt. The padded sleeve for a laptop up to 16 inches and the small organisation pockets start at one level along the inside wall, so a charger, a pen and the laptop are all within the same reach. Most totes stack pockets at different depths, which is how a phone ends up under a notebook.

The zip is the other detail. Bellroy sets the track close in against the seam, so when the Tokyo Wonder Tote is open the zip all but disappears and the mouth opens wide with nothing to catch a sleeve. Two front pockets hold a phone, keys and glasses outside the main compartment. Bellroy's co-founder and chief executive, Lina, tested the bag and named it, and she singles out those front pockets.

At 48 cm across it is the widest bag here, 32 cm tall and 12 cm deep. It holds 15 litres and weighs 700 g. The cross-section is a triangle, narrow at the top, so it tucks under an arm and passes down a plane aisle. A pass-through on the back slides over a trolley handle.

The fabric is 40 per cent recycled polyester and 40 per cent recycled nylon, with virgin nylon, other materials and a little leather making up the last fifth. Bellroy's warranty runs six years.

There is a 12 litre version, and it is the one to look at for a smaller laptop. The 15 litre is the size that takes a 16-inch machine and still closes over a lunch box.

A tote that turns into a backpack, with the straps hidden inside the back panel when you carry it by hand.

Most convertible bags convert badly. Carried by the handles, a backpack swings its straps against your leg. The Tokyo Totepack tucks its padded shoulder straps flat into the back panel, so it reads as a tote in the hand and a backpack on the shoulders, with nothing hanging loose either way. The straps adjust from 500 to 670 mm, and the back panel is 400 mm long.

At 20 litres it is the largest bag here, and at 850 g the heaviest, which is what the straps and their padding cost. The padded sleeve takes a laptop up to 15 inches, and a strip of fabric along its zip keeps the teeth off the laptop as it slides in.

Two Pop Pockets on the sides lie flat until a bottle, an umbrella or a pair of spare shoes pushes them open. Two vertical pockets on the front take a phone and a travel card. Inside, the organisation pockets sit high, near the opening, and a slip pocket behind the label holds an Apple AirTag. The grab handles are soft nylon webbing.

The fabric is a water-resistant woven nylon Bellroy calls Nova, 75 per cent recycled nylon and 10 per cent recycled polyester, with virgin nylon and other materials making up the rest. Like the Wonder Tote it carries a six-year warranty, and there is a 14 litre Compact for smaller loads.

It is the bag for a day that starts with a cycle or a long walk and ends in a meeting. For a lighter day the Wonder Tote above carries a bigger laptop for 150 g less.

The only leather bag here, and its shoulder straps come off entirely.

Sandqvist, the Stockholm bag maker, built the Leather Tote Backpack as a tote first. The shoulder straps adjust, unclip and tuck into a pocket on the back panel, leaving two top handles and a flat front for walking into a room holding it. Clip the straps back on and it is a backpack again. Where the Bellroy hides its straps in the bag, this one lets them go.

The shell is tumbled leather. Tumbling turns hides in a drum until the grain rises into a soft pebbled texture, which also hides the scuffs a work bag collects. The lining is recycled polyester and the foam is recycled. Sandqvist is plain that the leather is not.

It measures 40 by 30 by 10 cm. Sandqvist's US page gives the capacity as 14.5 litres and some of its other regional pages say 14. Sandqvist publishes no weight.

The laptop pocket closes with a press stud and measures 27 by 31 cm, for devices up to 14 inches. That is a firm limit. A 14-inch MacBook Pro is 31.26 cm wide and fits. A 15-inch MacBook Air is 34.04 cm wide and does not, so anyone carrying a bigger machine wants the Native Union, the memobottle or the Wonder Tote.

The bag comes in black and carries a two-year warranty. Sandqvist sells a balm of wool wax and pine oil for the leather, which darkens and softens with carrying.

Laptop size is a sleeve measurement

A laptop's size in inches is the diagonal of its screen, not the width of the machine, so the number on a tote's sleeve is a guide and not a guarantee. The width is what decides it. A 14-inch MacBook Pro is 31.26 cm wide, a 15-inch MacBook Air 34.04 cm and a 16-inch MacBook Pro 35.57 cm. Sandqvist is the one maker here that publishes the sleeve itself, 27 by 31 cm, and it is the most useful figure on any of these pages. Where a maker gives only inches, buy one size up from the laptop if you carry it in a case.

How many litres a work tote needs

Fifteen litres takes the usual office load: the laptop and its charger, a notebook, a bottle and lunch. The Totepack's 20 litres adds a jumper or gym kit. The memobottle publishes no litres at all, because at 5 cm deep its capacity depends on what lies flat in it.

Handle drop decides shoulder or hand

The drop is the distance from the top of the handle to the top of the bag. July gives 25 cm, which clears a coat on the shoulder. memobottle gives 18.5 cm, which suits a shirt or the hand. A tote with a short drop and no strap is a bag you carry by hand in winter.

A tote, or a tote that becomes a backpack

A plain tote opens faster and sits better on a desk. A convertible one spreads the load across both shoulders on a long walk. The Bellroy Totepack hides its straps in the back panel and the Sandqvist takes them off. Either way the straps add weight, and the Totepack is the heaviest bag here for that reason.

Which of the six

For a tech pouch's worth of pockets and a floor-proof base, the Native Union. For the thinnest bag, the memobottle. For a bag that washes, the July. For a 16-inch laptop and every pocket within one reach, the Bellroy Wonder Tote. For days that need both shoulders, the Bellroy Totepack, and the Sandqvist for the same idea in leather.

The backpacks this list grew out of are in quiet luxury backpacks for work and travel.