I've carried this around for about a month now with often than not loads of notebooks that hurt my back, and well, it's still in tact!

It's bigger than a "hiking" backpack I've previously carried around, and obviously much cuter and chic. I'm sure you could carry around about five of Fivestar five-subject notebooks and still have some extra space. It's wide and roomy.

There's a laptop slip inside (towards where your back goes) and a zipped pocket to put whateveryouwant to put. On the other side there are little pockets to put pens and two that are almost big enough to fit in a Apple laptop charger. The two pouches outside are pretty perfect for an Apple laptop charger.

Closing the backpack is not traditional, but you'll get easily used to it.

The only downside is the lack of a soft pad-sort of material against your back-- meaning, if there's irregular shaped things in the laptop slip, you're going to feel it. I'm fine with dealing with that, though.

Anyway, I absolutely love this bag! Glad I got it.

6/7/13 -- Quick edit: So I've used this bag for college for the last few months. It doesn't have the best back support-- my hiking bag I mentioned earlier feels much lighter because of the cushions on it. This bag does not have that. Regardless, my love for this bag does not end. It has not broken on me yet, and I carried around more than I should while school was in session. If you have bad back-- you have been warned!