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If you&re looking for a good jacket or bag, you have your choice of materials: leather, heavy nylon, waterproof synthetic weaves like Gore-Tex… but for my money (and not a little of it either) the king of them all is waxed canvas. Pliant yet protective, wind and water-resistant but breathable, handsome to start but grows a character of its own, waxed canvas strikes, for me, the perfect balance of attributes. I drape myself in it, and in the case of bags, drape it from myself.

The main caveat is that it is not is cheap — sure, you can get a bag for $30 or $40 on Amazon, but if you want something that will live for years and years and get better with age, you&re going to be spending quite a bit more than that.

The bags here are expensive, but like leather the craftsmanship and material quality matter a great deal in whether you end up with an item that deteriorates steadily or comes into its own. Like so many things, you get what you pay for — up to a certain point, of course.

I&ve collected bags from a variety of producers and tried them all for the last few months during everyday use and trips out of town. I focused on the &fits a medium-size laptop with room for a couple of books and a camera& size, but many of these makers have plenty of variety to choose from.

Check the galleries under each bag to see examples of anything I pick out as nice or irritating. (The galleries are all really tall because of a bug in our system. Don&t worry about it.)

ONA Union Street ($299) and Brixton ($289)

Pros: Rigidity and padding, customizable dividers, nice snaps

Cons: Cheap-feeling interior, bulky, could be waxier

Ona bags, at least these, are aimed more at the laptop-camera combo than others, with extra padding and internal dividers for bodies and extra lenses.

I reviewed the Union Street years and years ago during a previous bag week and liked it so much that I decided to buy one. Itthe larger of these two bags, fitting a 15-inch laptop and a DSLR with an extra lens or two small ones.

Not only is the whole interior lined with padding, but the dividers are padded and the main flap itself has a sturdiness that has helped protect my gear against drops and kicks. The bottom, although it is also padded and feels soft, has lived through years of scooting around and placement on rough terrain.

I like the spring-powered self-locking snaps, though when I first got the bag I was convinced they&d be the first thing to fail. Seven years and thousands of snaps later, they&re still going strong, and when I was worried one was failing (it didn&t), Ona gladly sent me a replacement.

It was my standby for a long time, and I still have it. It has aged well in some ways, not so well in others — its waxed front has survived years of scratches and slides along the floor and is marvelously smooth and still water-resistant. I don&t know how they did it. On the other hand, some areas have worn holes and the magnet that holds the back flap shut (a smart idea) eventually burrowed its way out.

The newer one feels very lightly waxed, but I know itin there. That said, if you want the full waxy look and feel, it could use a bit more. Itreally a matter of taste.

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The inside is the weakest link. The fuzzy plush interior feels cheap to me (though itundeniably protective), there are no internal pockets and repeated sticking and unsticking of the Velcro dividers wears the material down in places. Although being able to customize the interior space is invaluable for photographers specifically, a couple of strong decisions inside would make it a better all-purpose bag, in my opinion.

The Brixton is the Union Streetsmaller sibling, fitting a 13-inch laptop and a bit less camera-wise. They share many qualities, including price (only a $10 difference) and ultimately the decision is one of what you need rather than which is better.

For me ita toss-up. I like the open, separate pockets on the exterior of the Brixton for things like filters and cables, but the zippered front pocket of the Union Street is better for pens, phones and more valuable stuff. Personally I like the look of the Union Street better, with its riveted straps and uninterrupted waxed canvas flap.

If I had to choose, I&d go with the Union Street again, since itnot so much larger that it becomes cumbrous, but the extra space may make the difference between having to pack a second bag or not.

Filson 24-Hour Tin Briefcase ($395)

Pros: Versatile, well made and guaranteed, spacious

Cons: Lighter material and wax, floppy handles, storm flap nitpick

Filson has been a Seattle standby for a century and more, with its signature waxed-canvas jackets covering the bodies of the hip, the outdoorsy and the tourists alike. Their most practical bag is this one, the 24-Hour Tin Briefcase, which as the name indicates is a little more on the overnight bag side of things.

This bag has a large main compartment with a padded laptop area that will hold a 15-incher easily, and a couple of pockets on the inside to isolate toothbrushes and pens and the like. On the outside is a pair of good-sized zippered pockets that open wide to allow access from either the top or side; inside those are organizer strips and sub-pockets for pens and so on.

This is definitely the best generalist out of the bags I tried — itequally at home as a daily driver or at the airport. Essentially itthe perfect &personal item& carry-on. When I&m leaving for a trip I invariably grab this bag because itso adaptable. Although it looks a bit bulky it flattens down well when not full, but it doesn&t look weird when itpacked tightly.

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A bonus with Filson is that should it ever rip or fail — and I mean ever — you can take it in and they&ll fix or patch it for free. I&ve done this with my jackets and it100 percent awesome. The scars where the tears were make for even more character.

On the other hand, unlike many Filson products, this one feels only lightly waxed. If you want more protection from rain you&ll want to add some wax yourself, not something everyone wants to do. You&ll eventually re-wax any of these bags, but this one just seemed to need it right off the bat. The material is a little lighter than some of the other bags, but that could be a plus or a minus. I wouldn&t mind if it was a bit more heavy-duty, like their &rugged twill.&

The handles are nicely made and thick, but tend to sort of flop around when not needed. And the storm flap that covers the top zipper, while welcome, feels like it has the snap on the wrong side — it makes attaching or detaching it a two-hand affair. When it isn&t full, the bag can be a bit shapeless — itnot really boardroom ready. For that you want Croots or Ernest Alexander below.

Ernest Alexander Walker and Hudson & $385

Pros: Great texture and color, nice style details, low profile

Cons: Impractical closure on Hudson, Walker has limited space, looks compromise utility a bit

Note: I tried two bags from this maker and unfortunately in the meantime both have sold out. I&ve asked when they&ll be back on the market, but for now you can take this review as a general indicator of the quality of Ernest Alexander bags.

The one I took to from the start is the Walker; it has a pleasantly sleek, minimal look on the outside, the material a handsome chocolate color that has started to wear well. But open up the flap and you have this lovely blue fine canvas inside (therea reverse scheme as well). To me this was the most refined of all the bags in this roundup. I like that there are no snaps, clips or anything visible on the outside — just a wide expanse of that beautiful material.

Ita slim bag but not restrictively so; if what you need to carry isn&t awkward or bulky, thereroom for a good amount in there. Books, a mirrorless with a pancake lens, laptop — sure. But you&re definitely not fitting a spare set of clothes or some groceries.

The small zippered exterior pocket is great for a phone or cables, while the deep interior and exterior pockets are easily accessed and relatively spacious. If you control your loadout, thereroom for lots of stuff in here.

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Unfortunately, if you don&t control it, the bag gets bent out of shape easily. Because the top flap attaches to the bottom at the center, if it gets too full the whole thing bulges awkwardly and the tips flip out. And the carry strap, alas, tends to tug on the flap in a way that draws its sides up and away from the clip. And don&t even try to pick it up with the flap detached.

Placing the clip underneath the flap also makes for a fiddly procedure — you have to lift up one side to get at it, and because the loop flips down when not in use, it becomes a two-handed operation to put the two pieces together. A sturdier, more fixed loop would make this easier. But itall in the name of style, and the sleek exterior may make up for these fussy aspects.

The cross-body strap has a lot of extra material but I made it into a neat little knot. I think it works pretty well, actually.

The larger Hudson messenger I was prepared to like but ultimately just can&t recommend. Theoretically itfantastic, with magnetic pocket closures, tons of room, and a cross between the simplicity of the Walker and the versatility of the Filson bag. But the closure system is just too much of a hassle.

Ittwo straps in a simple belt style, which are a huge pain to do over and over if you&re frequently opening and closing the bag. Compared to Ona closures, which combine speed with the flexibility of belt-style adjustment, it just takes forever to access the Hudson. If they make a revised version of this bag that addresses this, it will have my hearty recommendation.

Croots England Vintage Canvas Laptop & $500

Pros: Handsome, well padded, excellent craftsmanship and materials

Cons: Flappy handles, uneven wear, laptop compartment, expensive

Having encountered a Croots bag in the wild one time, I knew I had to include this long-time waxed canvas player in the roundup. Croots waxed canvas is less oily than Filson or ONA, more like a heavy sailcloth. It feels very strong and holds its shape well. It is, however, on the high end of the spectrum.

That said, because of its stiffness, the Vintage Canvas Laptop bag seems to want to wear prematurely in areas that stick out a bit, like corners or folds near stitching. The wear process shifts the material from the smooth, almost ballistic nylon texture to a rough fuzzy one that I&m not so sure about. The aging from just a couple of weeks of use already has me a little worried, but italso very thick canvas.

The design is a bit more busy than the Ernest Alexander bags, but very handsome and mostly practical. I love the olive color, which contrasts beautifully with the red backing for the zippers. It doesn&t look Christmas-y at all, don&t worry.

The straps are a standout feature. The thick leather handles are attached below the zipper and rear pocket to D-rings, which in turn attach to separate leather straps that go under the entire bag. First this means that the handles flip down easily out of the way, since the D-rings rotate in their loops. The riveted construction also means that thereno stitching to worry about in the whole strap assembly. And the bottoms of the loops do a little basic protection of the canvas down there.

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It also means that when you&re walking, the outside handle tends to flap rather ungracefully against the side; the inner one, up or down, will be rubbing against your flank or back. You can, however, stow them in the side pockets with a bit of effort, which is a thoughtful touch.

The interior is a lovely shade of red, with several large loose pockets and some stiff leather ones for notebooks and so on. Unfortunately the laptop pocket is poorly proportioned: ithugely spacious, enough for three or four laptops to slide in, but the button to snap it shut is so low that I can&t get it fastened over a single 13-inch MacBook Pro. The idea that it could hold a 15-inch is ludicrous.

Therelots of padding, though, so I wasn&t worried about anything banging around. Therealso the option for a separate camera insert, though large SLR users will likely want to size up.

There isn&t a heck of a lot of room in there but this is definitely meant to be a daily driver briefcase and not an overnight bag — a &personal item& on the plane perhaps but I would take the Filson or ONA over it for space reasons. However as a bag to take to work the cafe, or the bookstore ita great option and a striking one. The Flight Bag is a slightly more expansive and unique option.

S-Zone & $30

Pros: Price, magnetic closures, leather edge details

Cons: Cheap-feeling interior and leather, little padding for laptop

To balance out the admittedly very expensive bags in this review I decided to grab a cheap one off Amazon as well. As I expected, it isn&t up to the quality level of the others, but for $30 ita bargain. If you want to experience how waxed canvas evolves and wears, an inexpensive bag like this is a great way to try it out.

The S-Zonefabric is a little thin but solid, rather stiff to begin with, but thatfine — it&ll loosen up as you use the bag. The interior is a cheap-feeling synthetic, however — it&ll work, but you won&t feel like royalty using it.

Thereleather detailing all over, and in some places it feels solid, like the attachments for the shoulder strap and at the corners, where there are big patches that will scuff up nicely. But the handle feels like trouble waiting to happen.

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Instead of a D-ring to allow it to flip down, the leather itself has been loosened up so that itextra bendy just above where it attaches. When itdown, the thin rope around which the handle leather is wrapped is exposed; I can just see this getting soaked, bent, soaked again, bent, and getting weaker and weaker.

The front pockets are a little tight, but I like the little magnetic snaps — they make it easy to open and close them without looking. Just be careful not to stuff too much in there or the snaps won&t hold against the pressure. Therea good deal of room inside, more than the Croots or Ernest Alexander, but less than the ONA or Filson.

But then therethe curious design choice to put padding in the divider defining the laptop section, rather than on the outside. And the leather corner pieces stop just short of it! That means the only thing between the corner of your laptop and the ground is the nylon and canvas — and they don&t make for much of a cushion. Though the other bags don&t all have dedicated padding in this area, they do all seem to mitigate it better, and the S-Zone bag puts your laptop in the most danger of hitting the ground.

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Hopefully the high prices of these won&t turn you off — watch for sales and you can get even these high-end options at huge discounts (ithow I&ve been able to afford them myself).

Do you have any recommendations for more bags along these lines that we should check out for the next time we do Bag Week Tell me in the comments!

While applications like Google Maps and Yelp seem to provide an inexhaustible source of information about local restaurants, stores and other points of interest, they also can come up short — moments when you arrive somewhere only to discover that the hours you had were wrong, or the store is closed for a holiday, or itjust shut down altogether.

The team at StreetCred is trying to build a better system for gathering and selling that data. And itraised $1 million in seed funding from Bowery Capital and Notation Capital.

CEO Randy Meech explained that if someone wanted to build the next Uber or the next Pokémon GO, they&d need location data to make it work. And while they could buy that data now, it&very difficult, very expensive.&

Plus, he sees room for lots more data — while Foursquare has data about 105 million points of interest and Google has 100 million, Meech estimates that there are more than 1 billion POIs across the world, many of them in developing nations where the data is more spotty.

So StreetCred is building a marketplace where users should be rewarded for collecting this data, while interested companies should be able to buy the data more easily.

Meech has been working on mapping for years, serving as the CTO at MapQuest (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon/Oath) and then as CEO at Mapzen, an open-source mapping subsidiary of Samsung. Thatwhere Meech met his StreetCred co-founder Diana Shkolnikov —he said StreetCred was created partly in response to the disappointment of shutting down Mapzen earlier this year.

&If we can get this protocol and data economy right, it can&t be shut down,& Meech said. That means leveraging blockchain technology: &Ita very natural way to open up and decentralize the data and also to build a payment mechanism around that.&

StreetCred is just starting to test the system out around New York City. The idea is that users can download an app and then collect location data around the city, earning crypto tokens as they do. (They take photos to validate their location, and the data is also verified by other users.) Then companies that want to buy the data can do so by purchasing tokens.

Meech drew parallels to Foursquare, which started as a location-sharing app before building a business around its data. StreetCred, on the other hand, won&t have any social component — Meech said the app will be &completely anonymous& and focus entirely on the collection of location data.

The team is still experimenting with the specific details of how contributions are incentivized and compensated, but Meech said users will be paid through an &anonymized wallet mechanism.& And while itimportant to make sure StreetCredtokens can be converted into &fiat currency& (i.e. regular money), Meech said this approach should also mean users are more invested in StreetCredsuccess: &We want to build an asset where the value of the currency is tied to the value of the data,& Meech emphasized.

&Our thesis is that if you make the data much more accessible, much cheaper to buy … you&re going to make things a lot easier and enable things that don&t exist today,& he said.

A group of legislators in California have sneakily but comprehensively &eviscerated& the stateimminent net neutrality bill, removing a huge amount of protections in a set of last-minute amendments. State Senator Scott Wiener called the hostile rework of the bill &outrageous.&

Californianet neutrality bill has been cited as an excellent example of what states can do to protect their citizens now that the 2015 rules have been officially rolled back and weaker ones substituted. And in some ways it actually went further than the FCCpopular rules, which were a bit more conservative on, for example, the practice of zero rating.

While the FCC found that zero rating practices could basically be pursued up to a certain point, the California bill would essentially render illegal the ones that exist today.

The California rules (SB 822) would allow zero rating to happen, but prohibit the part where an ISP could prioritize certain apps or businesses over others. So they could allow all music, or medical data, or indeed video advertising traffic to be free to consumers — but not just Spotify, or just this insurance provider, etc. Consumers get the benefits and are protected from most of the quiet but substantial ill effects.

But late last night the chair of the committee through which the bill must pass, Miguel Santiago, proposed some &suggested amendments& that completely removed the zero rating rules and several other important protections.

Now, disagreements on proposed laws are perfectly ordinary and thatwhat committees like this are for, to balance different viewpoints and ostensibly produce a better law. And Sen. Wiener has indicated that he and the others behind the bill are willing to negotiate.

&We attempted to work with the committee and made clear we were willing to make amendments, but we also made clear what our bottom lines were, and what we couldn&t remove from the bill,& he told me. &The way the committee went about doing this is pretty outrageous.&

Normally the amendments would be proposed and the author of the bill would work with them on how to integrate them — if they can&t reach an agreement, the bill doesn&t pass the committee. But in this case the committee literally proposed the changes late last night and forcibly injected them first thing this morning.

&Itnot common to force hostile amendments into the bill, and itparticularly uncommon to force amendments before the hearing even starts,& Wiener said.

To be clear, the amendments aren&t minor changes: pages of rules and definitions are entirely removed or reduced to far simpler versions.

&These amendments eviscerate the bill,& Wiener said. &They remove critical protections on interconnection, paid access fees, anti-consumer zero rating.&

Naturally these are issues that broadband and mobile providers are very concerned about. Since many already zero-rate lots of services, they would have to bring their offerings into line with the law, the process of which would probably remove any competitive benefit they derive from them.

Why couldn&t these decisions wait until the bill is formally heard and public opinion formally sought The bill as it was written had received plenty of support, but substantive changes could still be made in the months before it is voted on.

Wiener was frustrated but not defeatist. &We&re all professionals,& he said. &These are my colleagues. I&m sure we&ll have lots of discussions over the next few weeks, or even the next few months.&

That said, itclear from this ambush on the bill that there are powerful forces at work opposing it. What happens next is anybodyguess, but we&ll know more in the coming weeks as more hearings and committees consider the now deeply compromised law.