I was looking for a laptop bag to retire the BB107. Till did an excellent review that persuaded me to buy it, back in the day, but I decided that I want to retire my BB107 for two reasons: one, there's no place to put a water bottle, and two, the narrow design makes it very difficult to wedge in the power supply for my Dell. It's a nice backpack, and it has definitely traveled quite a number of miles (I travel with it and an Air Boss) but I wanted to upgrade.
I bought the North Face Surge and ordered the Brain Bag because I couldn't decide between the two through the online reviews. The Surge is definitely a more compact backpack. The big thing for me that is superior to the Brain Bag is that it has fantastic straps. The Brain Bag is a bigger bag, with a better design, but the straps are merely okay. It does look more professional than the Surge (but I'd characterize neither of them as a professional look).
Being a gear kind of person, I'm leaning towards keeping both: the Surge when I just need to bring my laptop and some smaller items, and the Brain Bag when I want to haul more stuff (camera gear, and I am going to see if I can use one of the compartments as a diaper bag of sorts).