A few months ago, we bought a softside TravelPro
Platinum® Elite Large Check-In Spinner . It is top quality and would buy that brand again in a heartbeat. With that said,
I'd buy one size smaller. The problem is that it's so big, it's very easy to go over the 50lb limit. Our last trip we were only able to fill it about 80% full.
As far as carry on's, I just recently bought my wife a July hard side carry on w/built in charger. It was between this and a monos. She wanted a hard side but if it was me, I'd probably get a soft sided Travelpro. The more bags I've owned, the more I prefer soft side luggage.