Boyt Luggage Mid-size Expandable Glider Review

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(More customer reviews)After a lifelong aversion to wheeled luggage, I decided that wheels would give me more flexibility for ground transportation. I travel regularly from NY to Tokyo, and I prefer to be able to use trains without being dependent on taxis (just a personal preference as taxis are plentiful in both cities). I have a great Tumi garment bag which is sturdy, light, and easy to pack -- but fully loaded it has become too much for me to haul any distance. My first thought was to buy a wheeled garment bag, but once I looked at a few (Tumi, B&R, Victorinox) I realized that the width would be an issue for city streets and trains; and then when I discovered that gliders also come with an internal hanging garment capability, I focused on bags like this one. As a long-haul road warrior, I also have one more unusual preference -- I prefer to check my baggage so that I can take a full set of toiletries without having to deal with carry-on security. So I honed in on bags one size above carry-on, which is typically a 24" roller; this Boyt bag is a tad larger at 26" but from a visual, weight, and features perspective it is the right bag to compare to the Tumi, B&R, and other brands at 24".
Here is why I chose it: After spending hours doing online and in-store research, I found that this bag had the most compelling combination of design features, quality, warranty, weight, and price of any of the high end brands. Touching on the most important (to me):
Design: Excellent interior, particularly the wide web straps anchored at the bottom -- whether full or nearly empty, stuff will stay in place. Also the hanging garment section is well designed. I haven't carried a suit yet, but I am confident that the 3-section fold-up arrangement with small bolsters at the folds will work as well as any design I examined, if not better than some which appear likely to put a bad horizontal crease where you wouldn't want it. The simple hanging loop gives maximum flexibility to pull shirts or trousers straight from my closet into the bag, without having worry about the choice of hangers. After a couple of trips with the bag, I can confirm that the wide straps and flexible hanging combo makes it a breeze to pack, unpack, and re-pack at the end of the trip (my Tumi laundry bag also adds to the simplicity of repacking). After examining a few bags, I also wanted a simple zipper design for expansion -- some have a rigid snap-in-place approach which looks like trouble. I also like the 2 pole handle -- it feels sturdier and more comfortable than the telescoping or one-pole design of some other brands. Regarding exterior, Boyt's Olive was the only non-black bag color that I was willing to consider. I would have been fine with a black bag, but now I have something a little easier to spot at the carousel. And the overall shape and appearance beat the boxiest/most utilitarian of the bags -- placing it side by side with the B&R it wins easily on style.
Quality: We'll see how it holds up over time, but I could see no obvious differences between the materials, seams, and zippers. I wish the wheels didn't have the "mag wheels" design like a Hot Wheels car -- but this is purely an appearance thing -- the wheels are perfectly smooth and quiet.
Warranty: Boyt's is essentially the same as B&R -- it appears to be an unqualified lifetime warranty. Like the B&R bags, the Boyts are built to provide easy access (via zipper) to the bag frame should a serious repair be needed. Boyt was recently acquired by Hartmann, but as far as I can tell this does not change the strength of the current warranty.
Weight: It's harder than you think to get fully comparable weight specs from the internet. I wound up checking with luggage scales at a couple of the retailers I visited, and at approximately 12 lbs, this bag was within 8 oz of the lightest bag I checked, no mean feat given that the others were 1-2 inches shorter. This was about 2 lbs lighter than the heaviest of the comparably sized bags.
Price: It was on sale at the brick and mortar luggage retailer in my neighborhood, making it the least expensive of the bags I was seriously considering.
To close, I've just returned from my second trip using the bag, and I am very happy with my choice -- that's why I've taken the time to set this down here. It looks like Boyt's marketing and distribution contributes to a pretty low profile online, so I hope this review helps others who come across the brand but have trouble finding useful information about them.

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