The main front pocket is very narrow, which makes it particularly tedious to use when the suitcase is fully packed. Photo: Maria AdelmannWhether you like the look or not, it reveals a deeper issue: The Softside Bigger Carry-On is trying too hard to be the hard-sided original. In other words, Away has failed to capitalize on a soft-sided suitcase’s usual strengths. Nowhere is this more clear than with the two front pockets, which are flush to create a flat front that mimics the look of Away’s hard-sided carry-on. Fishing out the hidden zipper for the main front pocket quickly became a chore. Photo: Maria AdelmannThe Softside Bigger Carry-On’s larger front pocket is billed as a laptop pocket. As soon as I received the suitcase, I fished out the hidden zipper, slid in my MacBook Pro, re-hid the zipper, and admired the barely there look. For a laptop pocket, it was light on padding, but I was willing to make a few sacrifices in the name of style. I was in!Until I (over)packed for a five-day trip, and several front-pocket problems revealed themselves. The zippers occasionally snagged at the corners, particularly when there was a laptop in the front pocket. Photo: Maria AdelmannWhen my laptop was in the front pocket, the zipper became less fluid, occasionally getting stuck at the corners.Worse, because the already very narrow pockets barely extruded from the suitcase, the more I filled the suitcase, the tighter the pockets became. The larger pocket was particularly tedious and fit little other than an unsleeved laptop. I stuffed, I yanked, I jammed. I longed for an accordion pocket, style be damned. Unless the lid was fully opened like this, the mesh compression panel kept getting in my way while packing. Photo: Maria AdelmannAnother carryover from the hard-sided version is the compression system, a mesh panel you can buckle over your clothes and cinch tight. I loved this feature on the hard-sided luggage, where it does double-duty as a containing mechanism for one side of the clamshell.On the Softside Bigger Carry-On, though, the panel kept flopping on top of my stuff as I packed and unpacked. This was fixable by opening the suitcase fully, but then there went another soft-sided advantage—a soft-sided suitcase’s lidded design is usually clutch in a small room where a splayed clamshell takes up precious floor space. Here, it offered few benefits.
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