Your iPad comes with you every day, but in your current bag it either pokes out the top or rattles around loose next to your keys. Choosing an iPad bag mostly comes down to millimetres: the outer size of your tablet plus its case, against the inner size of the bag. Line those up once and you'll know within a minute which bags are out of the running.
Short answer for the Beocca range: an iPad mini fits into almost any shoulder bag, an 11 inch iPad fits into Ivy (with a slim case) and into Mira, and a 13 inch iPad fits into no shoulder bag at all. For that you want the Cleo or Mavis backpacks, or the Mira tote.
How big is an iPad, really?
The screen size in inches says little about what you need to fit in a bag. An 11 inch iPad isn't 11 inches wide, it's roughly 249 by 177 mm. The dimensions of the common models sit close together, even across generations:
| Tablet | Outer size without case | With case or folio (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| iPad mini (8.3 inch) | 195 x 135 mm | 205 x 145 mm |
| iPad and iPad Air 11 inch | 249 x 177 mm | 259 x 187 mm |
| iPad Pro 11 inch | 250 x 178 mm | 260 x 188 mm |
| iPad Air 13 inch | 281 x 216 mm | 291 x 226 mm |
| iPad Pro 13 inch | 282 x 216 mm | 292 x 226 mm |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab S (11 inch) | approx. 254 x 165 mm | 264 x 175 mm |
Add 10 mm as standard for a case: 5 mm per side. A folio with a keyboard is bulkier and adds weight too, which smaller shoulder bags feel most. And don't cut it to the millimetre. Leather gives a little after a few weeks, but a tablet you have to force in when new keeps pressing on the corners and wears through the lining there.
How do you read the inner size of an iPad bag?
Bags are listed by outer measurements: width, height, depth. On a leather bag, the inner space is 1 to 2 cm smaller per side because of the thickness of the leather and the lining. A bag 29 cm wide therefore has an interior of roughly 26 to 27 cm. Take off a bit more for the base too, since a tablet usually stands upright against the back wall, and the base of a leather bag is rarely perfectly flat.
In a backpack or tote the tablet stands upright, so you compare the height of the bag with the long side of the tablet. In a low, wide shoulder bag it lies flat or at an angle, and then the width of the bag is the measurement that counts. That's why Ivy, at 29 cm wide and 23 cm tall, can take an 11 inch iPad while a bag with the same capacity but different proportions can't.
Which Beocca bag suits which iPad?
| Bag | Outer size (w x h x d) | iPad mini | iPad 11 inch | iPad 13 inch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ivy shoulder bag | 29 x 23 x 8 cm | Yes | Yes, with a slim case | No |
| Lua shoulder bag | 27 x 20 x 10 cm | Yes | No | No |
| Fei shoulder bag | 24 x 18 x 9 cm | Tight, no case | No | No |
| Beau handbag | 28 x 22 x 12 cm | Yes | Just about without a case, not with one | No |
| Mira tote | 30 x 35 cm | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cleo backpack | 32 x 25 x 11 cm | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mavis backpack | 35 x 45 x 10 cm | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The Ivy is the only shoulder bag in the range designed with a tablet sleeve. Beocca lists it as suitable up to 10 inch, and an 11 inch iPad at 249 mm in a bag 29 cm wide is indeed tight: it works without a case or with a slim silicone case, not with a keyboard folio. Ivy weighs 600 grams empty, so with an iPad Air added you're carrying around a kilo on your shoulder. That's fine for a train journey, less so for a full day walking round a city.
Lua and Beau have no dedicated tablet sleeve. An iPad mini sits loose inside, which isn't a problem on its own as long as there are no keys next to it. Slip it into a slim case if there are. Fei, at 24 cm wide, is genuinely too small for anything but a mini without a case, and I wouldn't recommend even that: the bag is designed for a phone, wallet and keys, and a tablet pushes it out of shape.
For the 13 inch iPad Air or Pro (281 by 216 mm, 291 by 226 with a case), every shoulder bag is out of the running. That leaves the Cleo backpack, which at 32 by 25 cm with a laptop sleeve up to 14 inch is the most compact option, the larger Mavis with its sleeve for 15.6 inch, or the Mira tote, where the tablet stands upright against the back wall. Mira has no separate padded sleeve, so you'll want a case around the iPad there.
Tablet or laptop: choose your bag on the biggest device
Anyone carrying a laptop alongside an iPad should choose the bag on the laptop, since it's always the bigger of the two. A 13 inch MacBook Air measures roughly 304 by 215 mm, so it's larger than any iPad. Which bag suits that is covered in leather laptop bag 13, 15 or 17 inch: which size fits. And anyone wondering whether a separate bag is even needed, or whether a sleeve inside an existing bag is enough, should read laptop bag or laptop sleeve.
For an iPad on its own, that sleeve advice holds up too: a thin 3 mm neoprene sleeve turns almost any bag with enough inner space into a suitable iPad bag, and protects better against keys and pens than a padded sleeve does. Even with Ivy, which has its own sleeve, a case against screen scratches isn't an unnecessary extra.
Where measuring goes wrong
People measure the bag at its widest point, up near the zip, and forget that a leather bag tapers towards the base. On a bag with a tapered shape, the base can be 2 to 3 cm narrower than the opening. A tablet that fits at the zip then gets stuck halfway down. Measure at the point where the tablet will actually sit, not where it goes in. And if you're standing in a shop: just bring the iPad and try it. It costs twenty seconds and saves a return.
Anyone who wants to see the whole laptop bag range side by side, including the larger models, should start with the best leather laptop bag of 2026.
