Best rolling luggage

Top-rated mid-priced brand: Eagle Creek

Reviewers pick Eagle Creek luggage more than any other brand. The Eagle Creek Tarmac 22 (*Est. $230) is a particularly great wheeled carry-on pick, reviewers say: It's lightweight, sturdily built and carries a "no matter what" lifetime warranty that even covers airline damage.

A bigger version, the Eagle Creek Tarmac 25 (*Est. $250), wins a head-to-head durability test against four other lightweight suitcases at CNNMoney.com, where its nylon shell "never ripped or even scuffed." A tester at Wired is impressed by the Tarmac 22's "knobby" tires that handle concrete, carpet or dirt with ease.

The Tarmac 22 carry-on bag also packs a plethora of clever compartments, including a hidden cash pouch and a built-in zippered shoe box -- although there's no garment hanger. Even when it's not expanded, the Tarmac 22 measures half an inch deeper than the normal airline size limit for carry-ons, although we saw no reports of owners being forced to check the bag. A 20-inch Eagle Creek Tarmac (*Est. $200) carry-on is also available. A bag from another Eagle Creek line, the Eagle Creek Hovercraft 25 (*Est. $185), proves very light, capacious and easy to maneuver in Good Housekeeping tests.

The ultimate frequent travelers -- pilots and flight attendants -- often say they use Travelpro, the original wheeled luggage invented by a Northwest pilot in 1987. Reviewers say the Travelpro Crew7 22-inch Expandable Rollaboard Suiter (*Est. $230) offers plenty of useful compartments. However, several owners complain that the telescoping handle broke. The Travelpro Walkabout Lite 2 25-inch Suiter -- now the Travelpro Walkabout Lite 3 26-inch Expandable Rollaboard Suiter (*Est. $130) -- seems heavy in a Good Housekeeping test, and the Travelpro TPro XtremeLite 25-inch Expandable Rollaboard (*Est. $130) suffers a burst seam and a broken handle in a test at CNNMoney.com.

The sporty Osprey Meridian 22 (*Est. $300) won Outside magazine's Gear of the Year award in 2006, where it proved "impervious to 3,000 hard-knock miles by plane, train, rickshaw, boat, and one cranky camel" on the reviewer's five-week India trip. You can roll this carry-on, pick it up like a suitcase or wear the whole thing like a backpack -- and the entire front is a zip-off daypack. The rugged Osprey Meridian 22 still earns very high reviews from adventure and business travelers alike, although a few say the daypack isn't as useful as they'd hoped. Osprey offers free lifetime repair of any defect or damage, for any reason.

Luxury bags are pricey, but durable

When expert testers start playing baggage handler -- hurling, slamming and scraping luggage to see how much abuse it can take -- a few upscale brands emerge as the most rugged: Briggs & Riley, Victorinox, Hartmann and Tumi. Real-life users say these bags really do hold up well, but you'll pay at least $300 for a carry-on.

The Tumi Alpha Frequent Traveler 22-inch Framed Expandable Carry-on (*Est. $595) easily outclasses all other carry-ons in one rigorous comparison test. It's durable and roomy -- the maximum possible carry-on size -- but one user says it's not easy to squeeze into the overhead bin. The Tumi Alpha series offers a full line of ballistic-nylon pieces with thoughtful, convenient features that experts love. Travel Channel host Samantha Brown picks the Tumi Alpha 28-inch Travel & Business Wheeled Expandable (*Est. $950) as her personal favorite in a head-to-head test at SmartMoney magazine, where it "survives a tumble down the stairs without any scratches, dents or smudges." Owners rate Tumi one of the best luggage brands at LuggageOnline.com, and an airline employee at FlyerTalk.com says he sees a lot of first-class passengers board with Tumi bags -- but that airline employees prefer the Travelpro brand overall.

Even though reviewers say Tumi Alpha is durable, it has a short warranty for its price: one year of unlimited damage coverage (including airline wounds) and five years of defect coverage. Briggs & Riley offers the best warranty -- lifetime free damage repair for any reason on all of its product lines -- and a Briggs & Riley case proves most durable in Good Housekeeping's tests. The Briggs & Riley Baseline 20-inch Carry-on Computer Upright (*Est. $350) gets high ratings, although experts note it's smaller than the Tumi Alpha carry-on.

Other good, durable -- and less expensive -- soft-sided alternatives to the Tumi Alpha carry-on include the Victorinox Mobilizer NXT 4.0 22-inch Expandable Wheeled Upright (*Est. $400) and the Hartmann Stratum 22-inch (*Est. $300). However, these brands' lifetime warranties apply only to defects, not wear and tear (although the Victorinox Mobilizer NXT 4.0 line is guaranteed against airline damage).

Mixed reviews for spinner luggage

Most rolling luggage comes with two wheels, meaning you must tilt it to pull it behind you. Samsonite introduced its four-wheeled Spinner line of luggage a few years ago and other manufacturers copied the design. The four wheels spin 360 degrees on an axis, and hands-on tests confirm that spinner bags do maneuver well and are easier on a traveler's back. However, the extra wheels add a bit of weight to the bag -- a consideration now that airlines have tightened weight restrictions. Tests also show that spinner bags can get out of control on a slanted surface. At times -- on very rough surfaces, for example -- you'll still need to pull them on just two wheels. In tests at ConsumerReports.org, four out of six testers preferred two-wheel bags to spinner bags. However, the spinner bags proved just as durable; their protruding wheels didn't pop off despite being abused in a tumbler and dragged up stairs.

Titan hard-sided spinner luggage carries a "no matter what" lifetime warranty that covers accidental damage, and Titan's lines of spinner luggage are lighter than most and include Transportation Security Administration-approved locks. The diamond-patterned polycarbonate shell of the Titan 360 Four Diamond Edition 24-inch Trolley (*Est. $350) proves nearly scratchproof when Popular Mechanics' testers hurl luggage repeatedly off a loading dock, and it does a good job protecting contents -- in this case, glass bottles full of paint. BellaOnline luxury travel editor Barbara Radcliffe Rogers finds the Titan 360 Four Diamond Edition 19-inch International Carry-on (*Est. $305) far easier to maneuver in the airport than a two-wheeled rolling bag, and when she's forced to check it, "its pebbly silver 'Diamond Edition' surface emerged looking pristine" on the baggage belt.

Titan 360 Four Diamond is a full luggage line, including the Titan 360 Four Diamond Edition 22-inch USA Carry-on (*Est. $390). Titan's glossy-finished 360 Four Flash luggage also proves extremely durable in one top test, although the Titan 360 Four Flash 22-inch USA Carry-on (*Est. $315) isn't judged quite as roomy or convenient as some cheaper soft-sided bags.

Two cheaper, heavier runner-up spinner bags get good reviews in The Wall Street Journal. The American Flyer Elite Quattro 360 21-inch (*Est. $110) is judged a best value, but the zippers are "bulky and a tad difficult to open and close." The Wall Street Journal recommends the Atlantic Graphite Lite series as rugged and versatile, but the Atlantic Graphite Lite 2 21-inch Expandable Carry-on Spinner (*Est. $130) exceeds the usual 14-inch carry-on width by half an inch.

Samsonite no longer gets the best reviews for its spinner luggage. Some owners give good reviews to the Samsonite Sahora Brights 20-inch Spinner Upright (*Est. $170), but they say both the fabric and plastic accumulate marks, so it's hard to keep them looking nice. The Samsonite brand in general suffers from durability problems in some tests.