Bellroy Laneway Crescent Bag 7L Review

We’re big on slings of all sizes to carry the gear we need throughout the day. Maybe that’s a tiny pocket on a strap that simply fits your phone, wallet, and keys, or something large enough to hold your laptop that just happens to have one strap instead of two. The Bellroy Laneway Crescent Bag 7L falls solidly in the middle, with space for a book or e-reader, a game system, a snack and water bottle, and all your travel documents, cash, and other accessories—practically everything except a laptop.

But is that easy to carry or convenient to use? Let’s find out.

External Components

Bellroy uses Seaweave, a nylon material made with 50% recycled ocean waste, for the Laneway Crescent Bag 7L. Depending on your chosen colorway, it has a sheen (shiny) or matte finish, with Blue Steel (a grayish blue), Ink (black), and Fawn (taupe) having the sheen finish and Sea Kelp (olive green) having the matte finish. The shine may or may not suit your tastes, but both finishes are pretty easy to clean, though the sheen colorways seem to show bulges from bulky gear slightly more than the matte.

On the bottom right of the bag’s front is a rubbery Bellroy patch in the same color as the bag. This vegan option keeps branding subtle, so we’re here for it.

Bellroy uses YKK zippers on the bag, and the metal pulls have cords woven through them that end in round plastic tabs. They’re easy to grab when you want to open and shut pockets and compartments without being terribly jingly. All the zippers work well and are easy to find and grab, even the one somewhat concealed on the back panel. That’s the hallmark of a good zipper, but if you’re not a fan of the cords with the plastic ends, you can just pull them out and use the traditional YKK metal pulls.

The back panel features a quilted padding that does a decent job of blunting the feeling of what’s inside the rear pocket. There’s some padding around the entire bag, but there’s more back here. You won’t feel gear inside much unless you pack it tightly with something that’s really pokey. Our tester didn’t feel anything until walking home from the library carrying two hardcover books inside, and even then, only slightly felt the corner of one book when the bag rested in a certain position. It was easy to readjust while walking, so we think the padding does a pretty good job and provides a nice touch, and the horizontal quilting adds an interesting design.

The strap is quite simple. It’s a nylon webbing doubled through a rectangular metal ring on one end and adjustable through a metal adjuster on the other. It’s easy to slide through the adjuster, and it stays where you put it, so you can wear the bag higher over one shoulder, long and low at your front, back, or side, or somewhere in the middle. However, while the lack of padding didn’t bother us on the Laneway Crescent Bag 2.5L, it’s much more of an issue on the larger bag. You simply couldn’t put enough inside the small sling to make the strap dig in, whereas you have plenty of space to fill with 7L, as evidenced by our ability to pack two hardcover books inside. Since you can put that much in the bag, there’s a better chance that you will, and a good chance that you’ll start to feel it digging in after a while if you do.

Fit Notes

The bag has a casual, everyday carry aesthetic, though it hangs more like a small messenger bag than a sling. Because of its size, it has less structure than the smaller bag; the padding can’t hold the sides up as well on the 7L bag as it does on the 2.5L one.

The adjustable strap makes it easy for any body type to find the right fit. There’s no padding or shape to work around different body shapes, so it’s a pretty universally good fit. Our only gripe is the lack of padding, and only when carrying a lot. You can fit a water bottle in this bag; if you toss an insulated one inside, you will feel it after some time. We also noticed that the strap is more likely to slip off your shoulder, whether or not you wear it crossbody, with the larger bag, though it’s easy enough to adjust on the go.

Inside The Bag

However, this bag can hold quite a lot, so let’s look at where you can put it.

Against the back panel is a zipper somewhat hidden by the horizontal quilted pattern, but noticeable because of the zipper pull. It opens to reveal a spacious dump pocket for whatever you need. Honestly, it’s big enough for a Nintendo Switch or a Kindle, but since the interior is so spacious, we think it’s a good place to stow a passport and wallet so you don’t have to dig around to find them in the main compartment. You’ll also have room for your phone, battery bank, and cord, or whatever else you want to carry there. The back panel padding blunts the feeling of oddly-shaped gear, so you can put pretty much whatever you like there, within reason. If you put something too fat inside, like a large travel adapter, it could push into the main compartment, though, so you’ll want to be aware of that and perhaps use the larger space for bigger items.

The main compartment is accessible via the zipper on the top of the bag. It reveals a few additional organizational features and a lot of open space. On the back panel, adjacent to that pocket we just discussed, is another zipper pocket. It’s a good place to lock down smaller accessories, though you may want to put things like SD cards and dongles in a smaller pouch inside this pocket, since it’s still pretty large. We’ve been using it for lip balm, a nail file, and hand lotion, but they still fall to the bottom of the pocket, leaving quite a bit of space remaining.

The flexible materials and soft padding allow both the exterior and interior zip pockets to flex wherever they need to be, so you’re not too constrained by what you put inside each. We just like locking down small gear, but if you want to zip up your passport or extra cash, you can do that, too.

There’s a wide, flexible slip pocket on the side of the bag with the strap adjuster instead of the rectangular ring (left on the back, right on the front). It’s large enough to hold a water bottle and would keep it standing upright as you walk, as long as you have one short enough. Our 21-ounce Hydro Flask is just a bit too tall to zip closed over the top, but there’s no issue with sliding its width inside. We’ve tested other shorter bottles, and this is a great spot to put something like that. It also works well for a glasses case if you need to carry them for reading or sunshine, though you’ll probably have space leftover next to them; the pocket is that big.

Two other slip pockets split the width of the bag’s front panel. They are equally flexible to hold your phone, wallet, or a notebook and pens, though you’ll likely still have to dig inside them for smaller items. They help keep gear standing up instead of falling to the bottom of the bag, but in some cases, you’ll still have to scrounge inside to get what you need. Pens, for example, lie horizontally along the bottom unless you clip them over the lip—that’s how wide these pockets are.

The pocket on the right includes a key clip on a decent-length leash. Here’s one thing we think the 7L bag does better than the smaller version: since the leash is inside the pocket, it makes it much easier to find than where it was attached outside the pocket, midway down the bag, in the 2.5L version. We’ve been using this pocket solely to hold our keys, and it works out great since they don’t jumble with anything else you toss elsewhere in the main compartment.

And let us tell you, you can still toss a lot in there. There’s room for quite a bit inside, from a packable jacket to that Hydro Flask we mentioned, to books or other entertainment. There’s no other organization, so you’ll have to dig around for what you need, but you have space to shove it inside.

That does give you a compelling reason to use the Bellroy Laneway Crescent Bag 7L as your personal item bag on the plane. You can swing it to your front when pairing it with a travel backpack and have everything you need accessible on the plane, even your 3-1-1 bag if you don’t want to dig it out through security. From snacks to entertainment to a bottle to refill after TSA and an extra layer for when your seatmate cranks up the fan beside you, you can fit all inside. You just may need to switch which shoulder you carry it on every once in a while.