CALIFORNIA LAPTOP BAGS

Timbuk2 San Francisco: Timbuk2 makes bags for Northern California urbanites.  They build sleek, durable, and fad-proof, usually in muted colors that hide stains well.  Their laptop bags are designed to carry the essentials of a day out in the City -- water, a laptop and charger, some books or notepads, a smart phone, a few pens, a hoodie, and a snack -- and to withstand the City's sticky-gritty abuses, like absorbing biker sweat, being stuffed under a BART seat, waiting on the beer-stained floor under a bar stool, and baking/soaking/abrading at Burningman.

Glaser Designs: San Francisco-based makes beautiful and super-functional laptop bags to order for "executive travelers," which I think means rich people who spend a lot of time on planes.

Patagonia: With Ventura-based Patagonia, you get what you pay for.  What you pay is a lot.  What you get is exactly what you want.  Patagonia’s gear and clothing looks great, it works perfectly, and it is manufactured as ethically and sustainably as reasonably possible.  I do not yet own a Patagonia laptop bag.  But I do own a broad cross-section Patagonia clothing and gear, all of which may very well last me forever. 

Zeyner Baldwin Park-based Zeyner makes briefcases for rock stars.  These double-take-inducing, highly functional bags are constructed from chrome, motorcycle-jacket leather, and motorcycle-tire-tread rubber, all triple stitched together by someone who wanted this bag to last forever under all circumstances. 

Marcopolini: Campbell-based Marcopolini imports high-quality, hand-made leather goods from Italy, including laptop bags.  I own a Marcopolini key wallet (which, for those who don’t know, is a keychain that stows your keys inside a coin-purse-like wallet, so your keys don’t punch holes in your pockets).  It is extremely well made, and its leather keeps looking better as it ages.

DODOcase: San Francisco-based DODOcase makes muted, well-constructed-looking (I've never seen one myself, but they look nice on the website), functional things in which to put other things, including laptop cases.