So I am honestly not a big fan of the Premier. I sent my old 22" Stealth one in for rehab and was offered a new bag instead, with the option to upgrade to Premier for $50. It certainly has a few improvements (it IS noticeably lighter) and the side pouches are definitely bigger (although that does make the overall bag quite a bit bulkier somehow). There are, however, two major disadvantages (and one minor issue). The front pouches (where i routinely keep my headphones and my laptop) have gotten quite a bit smaller, so now they don't hold much at all any more. Luckily the laptop will fit into a new pouch inside the lid, accessed via a new vertical zipper. The headphones, however, won't fit anywhere. Plus, even with just the laptop, the bag always looks overstuffed and bulky, even when the inside is near empty. This design flaw is really annoying actually. The second issue is that the zippers get stuck in the corners because there is a (supposedly protective) protrusion of material on the inside that works well along straight lines but keeps the pulls from smoothly gliding around the corner. Also very annoying. Finally, the bag opens the wrong way now. If you put it into an overhead using the side handle (as you typically would), you cannot access the main compartment. The zipper used to open on the same side that the side handle was on. Now it opens on the opposite side which you obviously can't reach inside a bin. So overall I am quite disappointed with the Premier and, after using and loving LuggageWorks for decades, I am for the first time not that happy with their product. I don't know whether the non-Premier has similar issues, but I definitely don't see any benefit for the Premier.