Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsMany flaws, but great company response
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2019
Update:
The company contacted me after I posted, in a very heartening way. Not only did they offer to replace the pack or refund, they said they were a small company, sincerely working to improve the pack, and actually asked me for more details and suggestions on how to make it better. They said they had already identified some problems like the poor material, and had found a different supplier. They seem genuine, and assuming they are really working on this, you may well get a better pack. And since they're starting from a great place of a potentially great pack, with a lot of smallish flaws, they may well be there. Here is my original review, with some updates in all caps:
I have tried a lot of backpacks and loved this one at 1st, especially the big size, light weight, wide/comfy waistband, comfy back padding and padded straps, side water pockets, and the chest strap. But 6 months out, I've done a lot more research, and throwing it out in favor of one Wirecutter recommended for students. So the "good price" turned out to be a waste of money.
I use my backpack constantly, for an assortment of tasks--daily to gym and commuting about town, packed for grocery runs, as my small carry-on on over 100 plane legs this year, and occasionally for day hikes.
1. The big zipper started to go a month ago--making it useless soon (once this starts, you can get the teeth back aligned temporarily, but it will start to be more and more frequent). Way before this, other flaws: (THEY SAID THEY HAD ID'D THIS, AND ALREADY CHANGED SUPPLIER.)
2. The little flap over the big-pouch zipper is a great feature for rain protection, but the material is so thin and flimsy, that it's constantly drooping into the zipper, and getting caught there--nearly every time now. So you can't just quickly zip this bag up: you have to zip with one hand and hold the flap out of the way with the other. (THEY SAID THEY HAD ID'D THIS, AND ALREADY CHANGED SUPPLIER.)
3. The cheap material of the bag started fraying very early, with threads hanging down, especially near the zippers, and they tend to get caught in the zippers. Every few weeks, I need to take a scissors and trim these threads, or both the zippers start to get caught, and I have to weave the zipper back and forth several times to get them out and zip it up. A high-maintenance pack! (THEY SAID THEY HAD ID'D THIS, AND ALREADY CHANGED SUPPLIER.)
4. The bag feels good on me, but something about the shape/design makes the shoulder straps want to slip off my shoulders--especially off my puffy winter coat, but to a moderate extent in all outfits. If I run in any outfit, it slips off constantly, and I have to hook my thumbs under. With the winter coat, that's required walking. There is a pretty easy cure: clipping up the shoulder strap every time. I got used to that right away, but it is another annoyance, and just more high maintenance: you can't throw the bag on and run, you have to hook both waist and shoulder straps. (I was thrilled to try on my new replacement bag, and discover how nice it was to just toss on at the gym and do neither.)
It really doesn't stay in place at all while running without the waist strap. Something about the design, it bounces all over, and then wants to slide off. (With every other pack I've ever worn, I used the chest strap only for heavy loads on mountain trials, or especially heavy load (like groceries) on a bike--you don't want the load shifting while biking. Here, it's required all the time, even nearly empty. (THEY SAID THEY HAD NOT HEARD THIS BEFORE. IT MAY BE PECULIAR TO MY BUILD, THOUGH I'VE NEVER HAD IT BEFORE.)
5. At first it stood up straight when I set it down, but the back material wore out quickly, and within a few months, it just collapses if you set it down or lean it against something with little or nothing in it. That means that as you pack it, it wants to collapse. (Most noticeable at the grocery store, filling it up, but also at the gym: you have to hold the top to keep it in place with one hand, while loading stuff with the others. So it's more like loading up a sack than a backpack.) However, this happens with most bags. Just be aware Day 1, if you're thinking about returning it.
6. Very bad on water repellent compared to other packs I've had. Incredibly thin, porous material. (THEY SAID THEY HAD ID'D THIS, AND ALREADY CHANGED SUPPLIER.)
7. Not great ventilation. At first blush, I thought they did a good design job there: with the padding running in 2 wide vertical strips, with a big gap down the center for ventilation. Looked great. Yet it proved hot and sweaty in the summer. As I've researched since, most bags (including this one), tend to hug your body at your neck and waist, so the big vertical center channel is pretty worthless: all the hot air gets trapped top and bottom, so it has no escape. Slightly more upscale models solve this with a series of padding cubes, with one vertical channel, and 2 or more horizontal channels, where the air actually escapes.
8. Weak on organization. At first I was happy with all the compartments, and that was a major feature, especially for plane travel for me. But it turns out, only 2 are big enough to hold more than tiny items like keys or a thumb drive. So on plane trips, I put most of the stuff in the big pouch, and a book, pills, pens and random things like that in the smaller main compartment--but it's deep, and much of that drops down, so it's hard to get to. All the other ones don't get used much. They came up with lots of places to put tiny pouches, but not thought out very well, so few usable spots. THEY WERE EAGER TO HEAR, AND OPEN TO REDESIGN. A REALLY SIMPLE CHANGE WOULD BE TO REMOVE THE CENTER SEAM: SO HALF AS MANY SECTIONS, WIDE ENOUGH TO GET YOUR HAND IN. (IF YOU HAVE SMALL HANDS, MIGHT NOT BE AN ISSUE.)
This is especially evident in the subholder pouches within the #2 zippered section (the second-biggest). There are 4 sub-pouches sewn into the back. I thought this was great, but I hardly end up using them. None have closing flaps, so stuff can pop out. Worse, they are too narrow for my hands (probably average man-hands) and I never thought I'd say/think this, but they're too deep! (Really, combo of too narrow and deep.) I can barely get my hand in--wriggling it down--so to even put paper clips or post-it note pads in there, I really have to fight to get my hand down to reach them and dig them out. They're worthless.
Much of this design stuff I never thought through to heavily, just knew that I was never using most of the pockets/flaps--I had tried several times, and they all suffered for some reason.
After reading the wirecutter piece on best bags in different categories (I highly recommend), they walked through some of reasons, but really, getting the Quad from LL Bean, I see what a great design process means. (I have a feeling they have years of testing features out with actually user groups to see what things work and not.) The Quad has SO many compartments which are so usable.) To contrast to the section of the G4 I just described, the Quad uses the similar flap design, but twice as wide, and a bit less deep: so anyone can get their hands in there, and easily get to the stuff. The Quad has only 2 instead of 4 of those (by not sewing down the middle to break them in half), but then has another row of them, with two small shallow ones--WITH FLAPS!--so you can put medicine or paperclips or a flash drive or keys or whatever securely, and then 2 pen holder, where the pen slides down vertically, and you can easily reach it from the top, instead of it dropping to the bottom of the whole sack 19 inches down.
In the Quad, I have about 6 different pouches big enough to stash a book, notebook, ipad, headphones, reading glasses or sunglasses (two of them fleece-lined! so I can even stash my glasses or phone), whereas on this model, all of those have only 2 choices: the 2 big sections, where they slide to the bottom.
All of this last stuff is most important to me on plane trips. I want to put the bag in the overhead, but easily pull key things out of it quickly while boarding, and get to easily when I land (like sunglasses to drive), and so forth. (And have other things like pills stashed in specific spots where I know where they are.)
This G4 SEEMED like it has a lot of organizational options, but it feels like someone just threw a bunch of pouches in there, without testing them out on humans.
Overall, the quality of the materials REALLY showed over time, too. After 6 months, it's really degraded.
The Quad retails for $75, though at the moment they're offering 25% off, so I got it for $56. That's $22 more than I paid for this one, and at the time seemed too "expensive." But replacing this after 6 months (of admittedly very heavy use) was no bargain. Plus, I'm SO much happier with the Quad--and Wirecutter says it's longterm tested to be very resilient, both in zippers and fabric.