The Sak Ventura Convertible Backpack

Love, love, love this backpack bag. The price is reasonable and leather is good (distressed) quality. It's roomy enough to hold my 11" MacBook Air, a rather large wallet, and phone with more pockets, besides. It works as a shoulder bag and a backpack, and is small enough to not be clunky. I haven't used it as a messenger bag, but imagine that's wonderful also. I've found it to be perfect for errands, work, and hanging out. It's not suitable for dressy occasions, of course, but you wouldn't want something this size for evenings out anyway. I bought it to replace a PV leather bag that was flashy and could hold my laptop, but falling apart. After trying many laptop bags, I found this one and wondered why I didn't purchase it sooner.

Love it! I got the black one and surprisingly, it fits my 11 inch laptop inside! So incredibly convenient! It's well made, and I love the backpack functionality with a handbag look. First day of using it and already 2 people that saw me are going to buy one too.The only thing I wish this had was a small handle at the top to pick up the bag. But I just pick it up by the handles.

I bought this a few days before I departed on a trip to New Zealand. This bag can fit quite a lot of stuff in it, without being an awkwardly big size to carry. The leather is very soft and I noticed it sort of crease and age throughout my trip, giving it a unique worn-in look by the end. I wanted to have a backpack-style day trip purse so that I could carry slightly bulkier things like a light jacket and a book on me without pressuring one shoulder the way a crossbody purse would. My main piece of luggage was a backpacking backpack, which would obviously conflict with also carrying a daytrip backpack around on travel days, and I didn't want to have to bring more than one purse for this trip. This convertible bag was the perfect solution. I usually wore it as a backpack for day trips, then switched it to a crossbody-bag for travel days when I needed to carry my backpacking pack.I only have 2 very minor complaints. One is that the arm straps and top handle on the bag are all one piece. So when the bag is in backpack form and you pick it up off the ground by its top handle, the top handle extends very long to convert the bag into a crossbody bag. I kind of wish there was an independent top handle so that I could grab a strap to pick the bag up off the ground easily, without pulling like 12 inches of the long strap. My second complaint is that the straps are very easy to adjust--a little toooo easy. I found that when I wore this as a crossbody, if the bag was weighed down with too much stuff, the straps would pull so that the bag would fall down the side of my leg until the strap was fully extended. In other words, the length-adjusters did not hold up when worn as a crossbody with too much stuff in it. It was annoying to have to keep adjusting the straps to have the bag hit me at my hip rather than have it bouncing against the lower part of my legs as I walked. I haven't experimented very much yet, but this problem may be easily fixed by putting a safety pin on the strap so that the adjusting thing can't slide down past it.Overall, despite those two very slight shortcomings, this bag was perfect for my trip and I will definitely get a lot of use out of it in the future.

While I think this is super cute and has been incredibly functional for me, the magnet clasp tore out and I haven't even had it a month. Very disappointed.

I absolutely love this purse. I mostly wear it as a crossbody. The leather is beautiful and soft. I didn’t want a stiff bag, and this is perfect. I love the capacity and several pockets it has. Looks great with blue jeans. I did put small clips for the adjusters because they kept loosening and the backpack would drop too low on my back.

I did A LOT of searching for a convertible backpack - satchel for a trip to Italy this spring. This is the one that I chose due to its appearance in both states; it looks like a cute travel backpack, and then also makes sense when you see it as a crossbody or satchel. However, I will say that the inside is deceptively small. I travel pretty light, but a water bottle, book, snack, and wallet barely fit - anything else made the bag so full it didn't close, which is not safe when worn in the backpack state. Also, the material of the straps is either a little too slick or the rings are a little too big, because I was constantly having to re-adjust as they wouldn't stay at the tightness I needed. Overall, I do still think it's one of the best-looking convertible bags, and can even get over the deceptive size, but the constant adjustments are too much of a hassle. Will not carry on another trip, would not buy again.

Really nice leather and great overall concept, but there's a few design flaws that make it just OK. First of all, if you shorten the straps to carry it crossbody, they don't stay put, so even a taller woman like me is always walking with the bag slapping their thigh instead of resting comfortably at the hip. Pretty much have to use it as a backpack and I already had a better backpack. Secondly, I do not have that much in there: a few lipsticks, my small wallet, some ikea notebooks for writing and a handful of pens, but the bag's closure is not sufficient for its size so I'm constantly needing to double check it to make sure all my stuff isn't falling out..thats happened. And it's even a little too big. Don't have a clue what they were thinking with this size/closure combo. Also, why is the strap soooo casual on a bag that can come across as business like and dressy? It should have a different style of strap. I like this bag, but really it's a fail. Other similar bags were either too small or even bigger. I'm not sure why it is so difficult to find a decent bag.