Originally Posted by
swwhite
According to my reading of the Ortlieb website, the Downtown has LESS room. It looks good though; I almost bought one. REI had one that I could examine. I chose the Office Bag because 1) I thought it had more room but still was not too big, and 2) it has the roll-top closure which I thought would be better in bad weather. I did agonize a bit however.
That being said (to reply to myself), I did recheck the website, and it APPEARS that the Office Bag is bigger (it comes in two sizes). However, I actually measured mine, and yeah, maybe the width really is 6.7 inches, or maybe it's closer to six with the organizer. If you take the published dimensions of the two and round down (15x11x6 = 990 for the Office bag, 14x14x5 = 980 for the Downtown), and calculate volume, you get almost the same. If possible, you should take the stuff you commonly carry and try putting it into both. Now that I mention it, I did that, and they did seem pretty close in capacity. The Downtown really looks good, the Office Bag has the waterproof roll-top. If you want the peas you have to take the mashed potatoes. Everything is a trade-off. Where I live the Office Bag was eight dollars cheaper--not significant.