OGIO Gambit 17 Day Pack, Large, Black

Great backpack. Room enough for all my travel needs.

Just excelent

This is a large versatile pack. That was my target and it works. For the money, be certain you want a pack of this size and versatility. I can use it for my work with room left over. I can travel with it. I can camp with it, fish with it. It simply adapts to what I need with margin for extras. When my wife borrows it, she isn't as big of a fan. She loves when we travel but for her typical use it is overkill and with so many compartments she finds herself guessing what is where. I have a smaller simpler leather pack that she prefers to use. My only complaint would be I get tired of black as the choice of better packs. I do wish there was a liner or even light built in that would allow contrast, it is so large it does feel a bit like a black hole. What can I carry with room to spare? Large laptop (15 inch) Water bottles, phone, charging battery for phone and iPad, iPad, pack jacket, note books, books, glasses and sunglasses, keys, wallet, pens, a puppy or 2 kittens, pocket knife, snacks, gum, AA batteries, small flashlight, leatherman, spare shirt, baseball hat, wife's stuff, and still have room for more. It fits well with proper adjustment, adjustments stay in place even with heavier load and it is easy to readjust for next load. I have never had a "cool" (temperature) pack but I have had hot ones. This one has been as cool as my coolest (temperature) pack that it replaced. Seams, stitching and zippers all hold up well, zippers stay zipped and are easy to open when I want them to. I don't know if the manufacturer is ok with this but it washes well in the washer when I put it in with jeans or towels and dries out very easily afterwards. I don't think I'd call it water proof, but it has had a dunk and kept stuff dry and been in heavy rain and shed the rain off better than I expected. It never absorbed water in either situation which I was grateful for. But, I may have just been lucky as well. It does become less stiff and more comfortable after a week or two of use.

Only 1 day in but I really enjoy this bag! I could not decide after hours of research, originally looked at Swissgear, then The North Face, then ebags...and MANY others. I ended up ordering several to get my hands on to see how they packed and how they felt. This bag was the winner!My use of this is a daily backpack for getting my gear to/from work. It'll also be used on travel and family trips (still carrying all the electronic devices) and the extra space will really come in handy for those! I don't walk extensively with this pack on, so cannot attest to its long term commute comfort but I feel it is supportive enough to be comfortable for extended use.It is HUGE! And I mean this in a good way. If you just want a dainty bag to carry a laptop, you need to look elsewhere. I've not even come close to filling this thing and I have my Dell m3800 15" notebook, my 13" MacBook Air, 2 iPads, 2 Kindles, all the requisite chargers, several USB sticks, 2 mice (my Logitech M570 fits in one of the outside pockets for easy access, love it!), port adaptor/extenders, HDMI Cables, 3 notebooks, some brewing magazines, Pens, Sennheiser HD489 headphones in a case, and there's still plenty of room to spare for more tech gadgets or even some clothes if I had the need.What I like most about this bag is that the laptop compartment has an extra sleeve for a "small" notebook. Most people probably aren't looking to carry as much tech gear as I do, so it is probably overkill for most. But if you have a lot of gear, you need to carry this is the bag for you!ProsPlenty of laptop protectionSunglasses compartment - YES.Tons of Pocketsplenty of ORGANIZED space in this bag, everything has its place, and then some.ConsNot the most comfortable backpack I tried on. The back padding was pretty stiff, got better with weight in it so maybe it will "break in"there are 2 top handles, neither are "comfortable" I use mine a lot, we'll see how it holds up.some of the pockets (the outside ones) are a bit too small to hold some things, would've liked them to be a little widerThe water bottle pocket holds my slim nalgene but not my standard wide mouth nalgene. Minor detail.This was not the most expensive bag I compared, but it was nearly the largest. It also had what I felt was the most practical organization. Pockets/compartments had purpose. One for tablets/associated gear, one for pens/other little items. None of the compartments inside pockets felt useless. Like those little puffy pockets that have a slim velcro strap over them. none of those here. I have a tendency to just "throw everything" into the main compartment of my old backpack. Now that everything has a place I feel I'll be able to keep it much more organized. Plus now I don't need to worry about the contents of my lunch getting into my laptop, or other devices because they're not in the same compartment!