BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage Review

If you’re in the market for reasonably priced yet useful bags, you may have come upon BAGSMART. We’ve been testing quite a few of their products and have found them well-organized and well-made for the price point. Will they last for decades? Maybe not, but if you want to spend more on your flight to Europe than on the bag you’ll carry there, it may be a good brand to check out.

That’s why we were excited to try the BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage. Of course, like many pieces of rolling carry on luggage, it’s about an inch too deep to meet the standards of most airlines, so you’ll have to decide whether the airline you fly with will let it fly as a carry on or not. So is it worth chancing a gate-check? Let’s find out.

External Components

Before we get to how you use it, let’s talk about what you’ll see on the outside. The BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage has a polycarbonate exterior, the same material we find on most hardside luggage we’ve tested. It’s lightweight and durable, so it makes a great choice for something you want to protect your gear but not weigh you down. It’s easy to wipe clean and hasn’t scuffed yet, though that’s probably inevitable with more use. It’s like the first scratch on a new car; you cringe to think about it, but it doesn’t bother you as much once it finally happens. If our experience with hardside luggage has taught us anything, it’s that scratches will happen, so just buckle up and be ready for them.

It isn’t just a plain shell, though; there’s a metallic accent running horizontally across the top of the front with the BAGSMART logo, as well as vertical ridges running from that band down the front. The exterior is smooth near the top and bottom of the bag, and the design repeats on the back side of the bag, minus the metallic accent.

There are carry handles on the top and side of the bag, which extend slightly to help your hand fit underneath and then retract to lay flatter against the carry on when you’re not using them.

There is also an extendable handle to help you roll the suitcase next to you through the airport or drag it behind you. It has three adjustment points, though you must pull it all the way out and then push it back in to hit a shorter height. It’s not too wiggly as you walk around, though there is a little play in the shafts. The handle is plastic yet comfortable to hold. The button to extend or retract the handle is on the top, which we prefer so that we don’t accidentally press it while gripping the underside of the handle.

The BAGSMART Roamer is a spinner bag, which means that it has four sets of wheels that can turn in all directions and trot next to you like a well-trained dog. There’s nothing groundbreaking about these wheels and they mostly work well. The only hiccup we ran into is a slight stutter if you try to change directions quickly, say going from pulling to pushing. They straighten themselves out, just not quite as quickly as more premium bags. However, that may be a small price to pay.

You push a tab to release two zipper heads from their TSA-approved combination lock on the side when you want to get into the bag’s interior. That’s there to keep thieves out and keep your zippers from coming undone while allowing security officers to get into your bag without damaging it if they need to. SBS makes the zippers, which work quite well. There’s a third zipper in the rotation, too; it allows you to expand the bag (which will take it even more out of compliance with the airline but might be worth it to get home extra gear).

Fit Notes

The BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage has a look we like, if it’s not the most minimalist one out there. The metallic accents and ridge design will hide many scratches and imperfections as time goes on, and the pastel and cream colorways you can get it in help it stand out from a sea of black bags. Some of us here at Pack Hacker think it looks a little feminine, while others don’t (especially in the Cream Beige colorway we’re testing); either way, it’s not a problem if you’re in touch with your softer side.

Since it has four wheels, it stands easily next to you while you wait to board and rolls easily along the tile floors and low-pile carpeting you’ll find in an airport. You have to use a little more effort over high-pile carpet and cobblestones, but dragging the bag behind you is the way to go in those cases, and if you do that, it’s still pretty easy.

We like the available handle heights and how easy it is to switch between them, as we prefer a shorter height when rolling the bag alongside than when we drag it behind us. Luckily, making the switch from rolling to dragging is pretty easy; it’s slightly slower to shorten the handle to go in reverse, but we’re talking a difference of seconds, not something all that bad.

Inside The Carry On Luggage

Like most hardside suitcases, the BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage lacks any secondary compartments, so let’s head inside to look at the internal organization.

It opens clamshell, splitting the capacity between the front and back of the luggage, though if you use the expansion, you’ll get more space on the back side of the bag. The organization there is similar to other hardside luggage, with a few minor differences.

While it has a compression panel and straps to hold your gear in place, the straps don’t connect to the panel. That panel can flip out of the way toward the right side of the bag when you want to access gear underneath, or you can unsnap it from the side of the bag and remove it altogether. It’s much easier than other carry on luggage, which typically requires you to feed the straps through something on the panel to remove it. There’s a large mesh zipper pocket on the front of this panel, too, where you can pack slim gear like travel hats and winter gloves, a notebook or travel journal, or even a wall charger and cord.

We have no problem packing for a 5-day trip to a warm weather destination here, with clothing on this side of the bag to take advantage of the compression panel and straps. The opposite side of the bag has additional spots for gear in two zipper pockets atop the zippered panel holding gear in place. Those pockets have gussets, so you can fit fatter or more gear inside, as long as you realize that they have to protrude somewhere, and that place will be the opposite side of the bag when you zip it up.

The top pocket is made with polyester liner material and is a good spot for socks, underwear, or other small items you want to lock down. The bottom one utilizes water-resistant material, so we like using it for dirty clothing and damp swimsuits to keep it separate from our clean and dry items. Neither pocket has a ton of space, but it’s certainly enough to allow you to hit the pool one more time before checkout without worrying about the rest of your gear getting wet on the flight home.

When you unzip this panel, you’ll find an open space that mirrors that of the opposite side, just without the straps. We like to use it for bulkier gear like travel shoes and our toiletry bag, but your clothing will fit just as well on this side if you’re using packing cubes instead of freestyling it like we have.

Overall, the BAGSMART Roamer Expandable 20″ Carry On Luggage is a good value whether you’re looking to pack for a weekend trip or something a little longer. We have no issue packing five days’ worth of clothing inside, though your mileage will vary depending on the size of your gear. Its dimensions are similar to most carry on luggage, so you may have issues with strict budget airlines, although those are likely to be the companies that charge you for a carry on anyway, so you may get a pass. However, it may be the luggage for you if you’re looking for something with a little style, a good amount of organization, and a great price.