I’ve had or tried a bunch of different messenger-style bags in my time, but I may have come across the Perfect Bag™. The Timbuk2 Command has all sorts of neat features and extras that make it suit me absolutely perfectly. Here are a few highlights:

• TSA-compliant: There’s a perfect sleeve in the back of the bag for sliding in a laptop. It also has a separate, well-padded and super-soft sleeve for dropping an iPad in there (yeah that’s right, specific sleeves for your laptop AND iPad. Welcome to San Francisco). The best part about these sleeves is that they’re on the back-side of the bag, which zips to fold out flat. Butterfly this baby open, drop the bag in the x-ray machine and don’t even fret about that “enhanced pat-down”.
• Luggage pass-through: Ever tried juggling multiple bags in an airport? It’s a nightmare. Between work and pleasure I travel quite a bit, so knowing that I can slide my bag over the handle of my rolling carry-on is a nice touch. When I’m not using it for that, the bottom velcros shut for an extra, over-sized sleeve to drop things in for quick access.
• Quick-adjust shoulder strap: I always wear my messenger bags on my right shoulder (so the bag is on my left hip), so the quick-adjust buckle is in the middle of my chest. This puts it in the perfect position to quickly adjust where the bag hangs, and doubles as a super-handy place to temporarily hang my sunglasses from.
• Super-slick buckles: while they’re a little tricky to get into position right now (it’s brand new, so the straps are still very flat), I love these buckles, and think they’re way more stylish than the previous clip-buckle style on most bags.
• Space: I got the small version of this bag, and it’s (relatively speaking) HUGE. OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it’s perfect for what I need, and fits way more than I was expecting. I can easily (and comfortably) carry a 13″ MacBook Air, power adaptor, towel, book, water bottle (tall Kleen Kanteen style) and a bunch of small things (keys etc). That reminds me…
• Dedicated power brick pocket: There’s a neat, almost hidden pocket below the main compartment where you can store your power brick so that it’s easy to get to without taking out everything else in your bag.
• Napoleon Pocket: This is the one thing that is a bit of a bummer for me. There’s a cool side-accessible pocket into the main accessory panel, but it’s only accessible if you wear your bag over the left shoulder. It would have been nice if they had the zipper on both ends of this pocket (which doesn’t seem like it’d be a problem), and then it would be completely ambidextrous.

Between the travel-friendly features, the double-gadget sleeves and the overall space available, this is probably my perfect bag. If only the Napoleon pocket was double-ended, I would have literally nothing to even kind of complain about. Well played Timbuk2, well played indeed.