Decided to make this my EDC laptop and tablet bag after trying a number of alternatives. Pros: Comfort is excellent. Same harness as the Urban Assault series, if you are familiar. The frame sheet isolates your back from the laptop compartment.
Without it, you would never get a comfortable fit with a large laptop. If you are shorter than ~5’9″, you should get the 18. Taller and you will be fine with the 24, but the 18 is night and day more comfortable than the UA 24 for a shorter person.
The laptop sleeve can fit a beefy 15 inch laptop and tablet, an Asus g15 and galaxy tab s7+ for me. If the laptop were any larger, it would be pretty difficult to fit. Same with a wider tablet, I don’t think a 12.
9″ ipad pro will fit in the tablet section. Main compartment is deeper than you’d think, and can swallow a lot of stuff. The organizational pockets are fine, just enough to keep a charger and another item in place but easy to access.
The internal velcro flaps that help hold the shape of the bag are great. If there’s anything in the bottom of the bag (water bottle, sweatshirt, etc), the bag will stand on its own, even with a laptop.
The UA 24 will not do this. The stretchy water bottle pockets work well, accommodating both a small 12 oz coffee bottle and a 32 oz double wall water bottle. In general, build quality is excellent. Beefy zippers, nice pulls, fabrics are of high quality.
Hummus color is very nice, little darker than the pictures, but that’s good in my book. Cons: The main compartment zippers are tough to pull. I am honestly quite surprised this made it to the final product.
The shape of the zipper has little bends it, which lets it go around the water bottle pockets. Good in theory, but the zippers get ‘stuck’ around the corners, and it’s nearly impossible to open the zippers smoothly without really yanking on them.
Maybe this will break in a bit, and it’s not deal-breaking, but its just silly. Next time skip the slight S bend, and just make the zipper one big U. Won’t look quite as cool, but it would work way better.
No strap keepers. This is another head scratcher, it’s got to cost what, maybe a dollar total to add them to every strap on the bag? Like come on, if you are going to give us like 2 feet of shoulder strap adjustment, at least give us a way to contain the extra, it really looks unprofessional without them.
The front organizational pocket is just weird to access. Why is it velcro on the top? It feels like they wanted it to be magnets, but ended up having trouble getting good quality ones for a reasonable price.
It’s a real shame, it’s clearly meant to be accessed from the top first and side zipper second, but I don’t want to have to rip open velcro for quick access to a pen or gum in a quiet environment. The pockets are taller and more vertical than I would’ve expected, and there’s only two medium sized pockets and two pen pockets.
There’s definitely room for more features here, and a little elastic or a couple zippers would go a long to making the pockets more useful for a wider range of items. The top pouch is oddly wide and shallow? It is fine for me, but if you have a Max or Plus phone, it will probably be too wide for a comfortable fit.
Just not as useful as the ones on tri-zip MR packs. Overall: The best pack for comfortably carrying a heavy laptop and tablet, with a few flaws. Nothing else is anywhere near as comfortable. Build quality matches that of more expensive bags from other brands.
However, the zipper design should have never made it past a prototype and the front pockets could really use a re-design. Just make the top a zipper and get rid of the flap, or figure out a magnet/latch system.
Two really easy to fix mistakes, neither of which are deal breaking, but they do prevent this from being a truly great pack.