ACL is Wrong, The Filson Padded Briefcase (258) Is Merely Good

Over on A Continuous Lean, Michael Lewis writes:

The Filson 258 padded computer bag (pictured above) is one of the best items the brand has ever made.

He is, of course, wrong.

Before I dive further into his wrongness, we need to first add a couple of points to clarify:

Michael Lewis is, generally, a man of excellent taste. That’s not something I think most people have, and not something I think people can easily learn, so it is a compliment if I say this about an individual. (People generally have inherently good taste, or poor taste. Though, it is possible for someone with poor taste to be smart enough to emulate someone with good taste, such that they appear to have good taste.) None of my comments on Lewis being wrong here, are meant to say that this bag is in poor taste, it is a Filson rugged twill bag, thus by definition it is a good bag.

I’ve tried almost every Filson shoulder bag they’ve made. I’ve reviewed a ton, here’s the receipts: Tablet Briefcase Review; Zipper Tote Bag Review; Medium Field Bag Review; Workshop Messenger Bag Review; Small Carryon Review; Original Briefcase Review; Dryden Briefcase Review; 24hr Review; 24hr Follow-up Review; Padded Briefcase Review; and general office bag round up; there’s more but I got tired creating all these links.

Lewis jumps back and forth in his short article about using this bag daily for the office, and for travel. I’ll touch on both.

I loathe Filson fans who refer to bags as the number like “258” because that’s not actually even the full model number (it’s the last three digits) and they tend to do it because they are trying to flex their fandom, especially if you are writing about the bag (toss that shade). Filson themselves, generally only refer to their bags with the model names. Annoyingly, this particular model has had several names used by Filson. Which is also another reason people will tend to use the numbers. I still hate using the numbers, so I’ll use his nomenclature of “Padded Briefcase”.

Ok, back to Lewis being wrong. His article is a paid member article so I am going to quote only two more sections to respect that paywall, but if you do read the entire thing, he’s got some good thoughts from others in there as well:

These bags aren’t on my radar just because they are discontinued; they have caught my attention because they are the perfect travel bag.

…

Filson’s Original Briefcase is much more famous than this padded briefcase, but if you have a computer, chargers, and other items, the Original Briefcase is just too small to be anything more than a daily city bag. I frequently carry a computer, headphones, and a camera, so I need the extra space the 258 allows. It fits perfectly under the seat of a plane, on top of your suitcase, and upright in the seat next to you in the car.

These seem to capture his main points about the bag in question. So before we move on any further, we need to understand where I am coming from. Which is that the Padded Breifcase is really nice, but it’s unwieldy and ugly, whereas the Filson 24hr Briefcase is better looking, and much more manageable. And I would argue you can fit most of what you need in the 24hr, and anything you cannot fit — well frankly you are carrying too much. But there’s more, and before we get to that we need to see what we are talking about, luckily I have a lot of images for you I shall now share.

Padded Briefcase next to 25L backpack.

Compared to 24hr

Downfall of the Padded Briefcase for Daily Use

The padded briefcase has some substantial daily use downsides:

Lack of compartmentalized organization. The front pocket is large and spacious but often a black hole. Ditto for the main compartment.

The size is unwieldy to carry on a daily basis, it’s over 20L in capacity and is the size of most standard backpacks.

The bag, when empty, is heavy. Add anything to it and it only gets heavier, and you only can carry it with one shoulder strap.

Because of the size of the bag, it encourages you to over pack.

It’s not that great looking, with a rather overly plain looking front that is mostly showcasing a beer belly of a zippered pocket. The aesthetics of this bag looks sloppy because of the design and size of it.

The thing to know about carrying this bag for daily use, whether around town or into an office, is that it is unnecessarily large and heavy, and it doesn’t carry all that weight comfortably. It’s the briefcase equivalent of people carrying 30L backpacks around a city.

Downfall of the Padded Briefcase for Travel

I will say, that Lewis is not particularly wrong in his love for the Padded Briefcase when you are on a plane because the capacity and layout does lend itself to being a good airplane bag. However, the flying bit of travel, is often not the most crucial part of travel. That is to say, if you optimize for what is best when you are on a plane, then what you select is going to be pretty shit for those times when you are not on the plane.

Think of it like this, if you had a little cube which perfectly fit at your feet under the seat in front of you. Maybe it has little sectional cubbies, and a magnetic lid which is easy to peel open from any one edge, then you have a pretty damned ideal bag when you are on a plane, right? Certainly. However it’s basically unusable outside of the plane — I can’t imagine wanting to carry it.

Now the Padded Briefcase is obviously not that bad, but the same trade offs are in place. Because while it works well on a plane, the moment you step off the plane, then you are right back to the downsides from the last section. And a couple more, which are:

People over pack as it is, thus we should not encourage this by encouraging comically large briefcases.

Rugged Twill resists weather alright, but get caught in even moderate rain and you have a sponge, which the padding will only exacerbate while is sucks up water, or a spilled drink on the floor the plane.

There is only one type of travel where the Padded Briefcase makes sense: one bag travel. It’s large enough for it. But why no one should one bag travel is a topic for another day.

Why the 24hr is Better

Whew, ok, here we are. It’s not that the Padded Briefcase is bad, it’s that people tend to see space as the end all and be all of bags. The interesting thing with bags, if you test enough of them, is that a properly laid out bag can carry a lot more in a smaller form factor than an improperly laid out bag. This is why people love Tom Bihn bags (in spite of how they look) — because they organize exceptionally well.

The 24hr is 18L, whereas the Padded Briefcase is 22L (the Original is 13L). The average sized “daily” backpack is somewhere around 25L for those curious, and the maximum carry on bag size is around 45L. The thing is, the 24hr Briefcase being 18L instead of 22L is not the entire story.

The real story is that the 24hr briefcase always looks smaller than it actually is, even when fully stuffed. The Padded Briefcase on the other hand always looks larger than it is, even when near empty.

And, I can attest, to the fact that the 24hr Briefcase carries vastly more than people think it will, and is even easier to access. But, let’s bullet point the pros of the 24hr (as compared to the Padded Briefcase):

Visually looks smaller at all times.

Oil-Waxed Tin Cloth is durable and much more waterproof.

The laptop compartment is padded.

The two front zippered pockets offer much better organization, and access to gear when flying and during the day.

The two open top pockets behind the front pockets are legendary when you are actively traveling.

The waxed tin cloth looks better, shows patina better, and holds up just as well.

The entire bag is lighter when empty by a very large margin.

The cotton webbing shoulder strap is more comfortable to carry, and will not risk transferring colors to your clothing when in humid/sweaty/wet climates like the leather shoulder strap can (and will).

There’s only a couple of downsides:

Tin Cloth is even harder to clean than Rugged Twill

There’s no padding throughout the bag, so it can necessitate clever packing to carry something like a camera.

It’s not discontinued, or often referred to by numeric model numbers. However if that’s the game you want, there was a variant of the 24hr called the ’72hr’ which you can go eBay hunting for and learn about all the small differences.

Wrap It Up

As I said, I’ve used most of the Filson bags a person could, and have used them for considerable time. The only shoulder bag I still own from Filson is the 24hr, because it is so clearly the best that I spent my money trying four different colors of the bag to determine the best color. And, I was carrying two iPad Pros with keyboard covers, a Leica Q2, Coffee Mug, Trauma First Aid Kit, and charging gear — not even remotely a small load out. I feel confident I’ve tested the every loving fuck out of these bags.

The 24hr is substantially better than the Padded Briefcase and that’s just that.