How we scored
Roll quality on three surfaces — carpet, polished concrete, and cobbles. Lift weight at full capacity. Sizer compliance across four major carriers, measured against published dimensions and the sizer at LHR-3. And the soft factor: do you actually like opening this bag in a cramped overhead?
The winner
A backpack-roller hybrid that lost a point for handle wobble and won everywhere else. The reason it wins isn’t the wheels — it’s the front-load layout, which means you can pack and unpack a five-day trip on a hotel-room floor without a single sigh.
The runner-up is a softshell that scored higher on materials but lower on organisation; if you’re a one-cube minimalist, it might be your pick.