- The Mystery Ranch Rover is a big, 43 liter hauler
with some durable materials used in the construction
and some very simple organization throughout,
making it a great option
for maximum legal size carry on travel.
I'm Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker,
where we use our expertise and real world experience
to provide practical resources and honest opinions
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AJ, our managing editor, and I
have been testing the Rover 43 liter backpack
for the last three weeks in Detroit, Michigan,
pretty much loading it to the brim
as if we were traveling,
and that's definitely made a big difference
in the testing, which we'll get into
a little bit more of that later.
Be sure to head over to packhacker.com,
link in the description below,
to take a look at the full review
and see all of the best buying options.
Let's jump right in.
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The main fabric on the exterior of the Mystery Ranch Rover
is a 500D cordura nylon,
and the liner on the interior is 200D.
It feels pretty good on the hand,
overall, however, you get into some areas
in the inside of the bag where there's actually
no liner, and because it's 500D and there's no liner,
it does feel a little bit cheap and thinner,
at least compared to other Mystery Ranch products
that we've tested.
Take, for instance, the Urban Assault 24,
which, our version has the thousand D cordura
and liner throughout.
That definitely feels a lot more robust to the touch.
From a branding perspective,
we have a big, chunky, metal Mystery Ranch logo here
on the front of the bag.
There's definitely no question that you have
a Mystery Ranch backpack.
At the time of this review,
the bag comes in three different colors.
We have Coyote, which is more of a tan color,
Galaxy, which is a blue color
and it has a really rad Coyote zipper pull,
and then we have black,
the version that we've been testing right here.
This bag definitely has a big and boxy look,
so it may look a little bit weird,
although we think this is streamlined
than other boxy bags that we've tested.
However, the main advantage of it
is that you can pack this thing totally full
with travel gear and packing cubes.
We threw this out to our Instagram audience
to see if they like the look of the bag
and here are the results.
Make sure to go follow @packhacker on Instagram
if you want to be involved in future polls.
And to wrap up the rest of the materials on this bag
we have big, beefy YKK AquaGuard zippers
that are strong, have some great durability as well,
and help with added weather resistance.
On top of that, we have plastic, durable,
Duraflex plastic hardware on places like the strap adjusters
and the buckles throughout the bag.
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Kicking it off with the harness system,
we have some comfortable padded shoulder straps
that are about a half inch in depth,
and they have some really nice density to them.
There's also mesh on the backside
that helps with air flow as you're wearing the bag.
There's one strip of nylon webbing
that goes down the front of the strap
with two sewing attachment points here
and that's to create the space for the adjustability
of the sternum strap.
We like that the sternum strap is securely fastened
and it's definitely hard to take this thing off.
Moving down the rest of the strap,
we have some nice, big Duraflex adjusters
at the bottom of the straps.
The straps are really long here
and there are no elastic keepers
so you're definitely not at dangle zero.
These straps are detachable at the bottom as well
via the G-hook.
At first we thought these would kind of come off
without us wanting them to,
however, in our three weeks of testing,
it's been totally fine.
We have had some problems with gatekeeper buckles
in the past that just detach with a small metal lever,
but in this case, they seem to stay there
because it's using rigid plastic
and not just a small, thin, metal lever.
We also like that there is a small bit of fabric
on each side that kind of act as little pockets
to hide this plastic strap attachment point inside of.
And, of course, the reason that you'd want
to take the straps off is that you can
hide them away within this little slot up here
if you want to, say, check the bag or something,
or you just want less straps flying around.
Just know that these G-hooks
do take a little bit of getting used to,
they do take a while to get off,
which is a good and a bad thing.
It's good because you're not just gonna lose it randomly,
but it's bad if you're in a hurry trying to check your bag.
Next up, the back panel, or lack thereof.
There's really no padding here
or mesh for air flow to speak of.
Although, there is a frame sheet with some slight
rigidity, just enough to give the bag
a little bit of structure,
but overall, I mean, it's still flexible
and will contour to your back as well.
Structure-wise this bag is decently floppy,
so it's not quite as floppy as the Patagonia MLC 45 liter,
but it is definitely floppier than the Evergoods CTB 40,
which has this kind of structured padding all around it.
So, it's kind of between those two,
you can see here we have the bag kind of halfway filled up,
and it does hold some of its structure,
but it definitely is floppy as well.
So it's kind of in between those two bags.
The entire harness system is anchored
a little bit lower on the bag,
which can help mitigate the need for load lifters
because there's just a little bit more weight and space
at the top, so this stays a little bit closer to your back.
Although load lifters aren't 100% necessary
for a bag of this size and a slimmer profile,
it can definitely start to help for bags
that are getting to be over 35 liters in capacity.
It just helps the bag on the top
stay a little bit closer to your back
and just hugs you a little bit better
for a more comfortable carry.
And lastly, there's no option for a hip belt.
The same comment goes here as it does on load lifters.
We think bags that are over 35 liters
should at least have an option
because they can get really heavy
and some of that additional support being put on your hips
helps the carry be a lot more comfortable.
Next up at the top, we have a nice,
folded, webbing handle right here.
It kind of has a padded feel to it as well,
so it's comfortable enough to grab.
There are two handles on the side of the bag as well,
which serve two purposes.
The first is that you can grab both of the handles
and the weight kind of stays centered with the bag
because each handle is on the left and the right hand side,
you have the zipper basically going
directly down the middle, so when you hold both of those,
the weight is more balanced and distributed.
Secondly, while you have the bag open,
fully in clamshell mode, one of those handles
is on each side, so while it's open,
you can easily carry the bag around
if you'd want to move it without needing to close it,
move it, and then reopen it back up again.
There are also two smaller sections on the handles,
presumably to attach something like a carabiner
or a luggage tag.
Lastly, we have two D-rings on the exterior of the bag
which you can attach the included messenger strap to.
Now, that's gonna be up to you whether or not
this is useful or not.
We think that the bag is a little bit too big
to wear in messenger mode.
As always, your mileage may vary.
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Now moving on to the interior of the pack,
starting with the shoe compartment down below.
This unzips from the bottom to reveal ample space
for even a larger pair of shoes,
or dirty clothes if you want to stuff them away here
after you've worn them.
We like that Mystery Ranch has included a pocket like this
and we think it's really thoughtful as well.
Next up, we have the front smaller pocket.
This is a decent stash pocket
with a little bit of organization as well.
On other bags, we like when the quick-grab pocket
is more up here.
Just a little bit easier to take everything out
of your pockets and be holding the bag by the handle
and dump everything in there
as you're going through airport security
or something like that.
But in the case of the Mystery Ranch Rover,
the quick access pocket is at the front here.
The depth of this pocket goes down to about the middle
of the Mystery Ranch logo.
There are three slots for pens, pencils, and styluses here
and then two slots on the left hand side
for things a little bit larger, maybe like snacks.
I do think the two liner pockets on the left
are a little bit of a weird size,
they're just a little bit bigger
than then pen, pencil, and stylus pockets,
but still a little bit too small to use for
things like a battery bank or tech items.
This interior organization here is just okay,
the pocket positioning is a little bit weird
and we don't love the divider pockets here,
we think they could've done a little bit more.
The front horseshoe pocket opens right up
and comes down about one-third of the front of the bag.
This pocket pretty much goes down
the full height of the bag,
cutting off where you see the sewn seam towards the bottom,
so that's the seam
that holds the bottom of the pocket in place.
Inside, there is a pocket that snugly fits
a 15 inch MacBook Pro, however,
even if you put the smallest and thinnest case on it,
it can still be hard to fit into this pocket.
We wish there was just a little bit more room, here.
There's a stretchy nylon strap
on the laptop compartment as well.
It is a little bit clumsy to fasten
and it just is kind of, like,
really long and really stretchy.
We're not entirely sure why.
Lastly, the positioning of this laptop pocket.
We generally prefer that the laptop pocket
is closer to the wearer's back.
It just makes it a lot more comfortable to carry
and seems like better positioning for the laptop.
We see this on most travel bags.
In front of that laptop pocket,
there is a triangular liner flat pocket,
which opens up to reveal space
for a small notebook or a tablet.
We like this liner mechanism a little bit better
because it seems to really lock that pocket in place
versus that big elastic band that's just kind of
flopping all over the place.
And next up, the main event,
the main compartment of this bag.
This thing opens up fully clamshell style
with a number 10 YKK Racquet coil zipper.
The zippers also have really big
Paracord zipper pulls on them,
which is great to grab if you're wearing gloves
or something like that, however,
there were times where they kind of tangled up
and we couldn't really tell which pull
belonged to which zipper on the bag.
All right, so let's talk about each side.
On the left, which is the closest to your back,
you're gonna have the most space in this compartment.
It's a little bit more rectangular
and you won't have the front pockets
cutting into the space, so that shoe pocket,
the quick grab pocket,
and the horseshoe pocket in the front,
those kind of cut into the right hand side
of the clamshell compartment.
Each side offers a very simple,
full width and height, large mesh divider pocket,
which is good for things like socks and underwear,
and they act as the flaps to the entrance
of the main part of these clamshell buckets.
So yeah, organization-wise, it's very simple,
there's not a ton going on,
but we like that because that enables you to
really fully pack this thing out with packing cubes
if you like, or just kind of stuff everything inside
and try to keep it as organized as possible.
We definitely recommend using packing cubes,
or if you don't have any of those,
then just compression sacks.
Make sure to go check out our full guide on packing cubes
over at packhacker.com.
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At the time of this review, AJ, our managing editor, and I
have been testing this bag around Detroit, Michigan,
for the last three weeks,
pretty much keeping it fully loaded
or as fully loaded as possible
as we've been using it in everyday use.
AJ and I found out pretty quickly that this bag
doesn't work super well as an everyday carry,
much better as a travel backpack.
And sometimes we find bags that can kind of be used as both,
but due to the positioning of the laptop compartment,
this bag just kind of crumples
if you just put a laptop in it and nothing else.
It is much better if it's structured with clothing
and packing cubes and things of that nature.
Just generally a great bag when it's fully packed out,
which is the intention of the Rover.
And we really love the giant box aspect
of this bag as well, you can really cover
and load this thing up
and really maximize every inch of space inside
due to the boxy nature.
In usage, this bag feels nice and comfortable to wear,
however, we really like the harness systems
a little bit better on other Mystery Ranch bags
that we've tested, like the Mystery Ranch Urban Assault 24.
So yeah, if we're gonna sum it up,
overall the usage of this bag has been good,
but not great and not amazing.
So for the pros and cons, starting with the pros.
There is ample space for packing cubes and travel gear,
the dual side handles let you
move the bag around while open,
the dedicated shoe compartment is a nice touch,
we like that Mystery Ranch is really thinking through
the user experience of their bags.
Now onto the cons.
The bag is a little bit on the floppy side,
there is no option for a hip belt,
which we think at 43 liters is a tough sell,
and lastly, the bag doesn't feel quite as robust
and as high quality as other Mystery Ranch products
we've been able to test.
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At the end of the day, we take the Mystery Ranch Rover
for what it is, a really large, travel- focused bag
that optimizes space.
It's a no-frills box with some decent organization
that you can really pack full.
Overall, the quality of the bag doesn't feel as robust
as other Mystery Ranch products we've tested,
but if you're looking for a decently structured
large hauler that's comfortable to carry,
the Mystery Ranch Rover could be a solid pick for you.
So there you have it, our review of the Mystery Ranch Rover.
We would love to hear what you think of this thing
in the comments below, and thanks for keeping it here
at Pack Hacker, your guide to smarter travel.
We'll see you in the next video.