tomatocity said:
The zippered expansion is only for outside the cases when they are being used as hand luggage. If you filled them with the expanded zipper open you could not put them in the cases.
Not trying to be argumentative, but I think the expansion feature is designed to give the liner the flexibility to better fit the rather odd interior dimensions of the cases which vary from side-to-side. If you never use the expansion, I could see how you'd feel like there was wasted space.
Measuring the interiors, the R case is about 7.5" wide at the top and expands to about 8" at the bottom when you clear the latch mechanism. The L case is the same width at the top, but narrows to about 6.75" for the exhaust cutout. Measuring the exteriors, the liners are about 6" wide unexpanded and 7.5" expanded. Consistent with this, I typically keep the R liner expanded, and the L unexpanded - the packed liners fit snugly but are not hard to get into the cases. I feel like I'm making pretty good use of the case's capacity.
I typically keep squish-able clothes in the L bag when I tour, so if I'm short for room, I'll also expand this liner and just make sure I don't pack the bottom of the bag very tightly. By my experience and tape measure, except for the L bottom, both cases should accept the expanded liners. Now, if you're putting hard things in these bags without give, you might have some trouble as any over packing of the bag whatsoever would make it not fit.
As an aside, I would never use these bags for luggage on a trip independent of the cases. They're too light duty, especially the carrying handles and zippers. The zipper pulls, in particularly are almost ridiculously fragile; fortunately, they're easy to replace when the give out which they quickly do.
- Mark
