When I travel internationally, there are a lot of trains involved.  So, I wanted to upgrade to a spinner carry-on to be able to navigate the aisles easily.  I was neutral on the hard vs. soft sided luggage, but went for this one after some debate and a lot of reading reviews!  I picked up the Tasmania carry-on in the red color, which is a lovely match for a deep red soft-side Samsonite set I have had for years.  I only took the carry-on for a few trips (about 4 domestic and 4 international to Europe and Asia).  Of these trips, the bag was only checked (i.e., probably beaten around much worse than I would have done) about 1/2 of the time.  After returning from Asia, I was sad to see that the strip on the front that has the logo on it had ripped off, leaving two holes in the luggage and an eyesore.  I got my original one from Kohls, so I just took it back and got a new one.  But I'm disappointed that accent piece wasn't very sturdy!  I'd have been really upset if I weren't able to return it, after only having it for about 6 months!  Other than that, it is roomy and a breeze to wheel around.  I lock the handle at a comfortable level and push the bag in front of me instead of straining my arm to drag it behind.  Makes traveling so much more fun when you're not miserable lugging bags around!  The TSA lock is also a plus, although I need to figure out how to reset the combo, as when I got my new piece I returned the tag with the old one before I set the combination.  So, if you pick this up, don't do that.  :)