- In this video, we're going to be taking a look
at the Nomatic Travel Bag,
not to be confused with their Travel Pack.
I'm Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker,
and we do reviews like this all the time.
So if you're new here, consider subscribing to the channel.
Let's jump right into the Nomatic Travel Bag review.
[upbeat music playing]
The Nomatic Travel Bag looks like a giant box on your back
'cause that's basically what it is.
And the benefit that you get with a shape like this
is that it's maximized for carrying a lot
of things on with you while still being carry-on compliant
with most airlines.
Now, in contrast to something like
say, the Minaal up there on the wall,
there's a bit of a curved shape to it
and that adds a little bit of a look to it.
I personally think that looks slick.
You're not going to find that with
the Nomatic Travel Bag.
What you are going to gain is, instead of having a curve here,
you're going to have that extra space here,
so it's just basically like a box.
Nomatic boasts that the bag is made
of strong, waterproof tarpaulin material
that will last forever.
Now, that quote falls a little bit flat
when it comes to the entire design of the bag.
So, we do have the tarpaulin material here,
on the straps, on this side.
However, on the back, there is a ballistic weaved,
either polyester or nylon material,
and there's a little bit of padding here and all that.
And if you're using this in duffel mode
and the ground is wet at all,
this will just soak right through.
So, the top definitely
has a better water-resistance potential.
The zippers are weather-resistant as well.
The only place where that claim really falls flat
is this material on the back here.
Definitely not waterproof,
although it's highly water-resistant
on every place on this bag, except for here.
There's a Nomatic logo on the bottom right-hand corner
of the back of the bag so people
can definitely see what type of pack you have.
And there's this triangular pattern
on some of the tarpaulin going on here.
So some folks will be a fan of that, others won't.
We kind of wish it was a little more minimalistic,
that doesn't really feel necessary,
but it does add a nice branding element to Nomatic.
Wrapping it up, there is some
durable Duraflex plastic hardware used
throughout the pack.
The Travel Bag features a very thick handle
at the top here, just to kind of grab it
and hang it on stuff and bring it around.
Then, you have a thinner handle on the bottom.
I kind of wish they would've just taken
this padding on each side
and sort of just evened it out.
So, the bottom one had a little bit more padding,
but the top one maybe had a little less
so it wasn't so bulky.
But, we'll live with it.
Also, there's a pass-through section here
so you can put it right onto a roller bag.
This bag is intended to be a mix
of a duffel bag and a backpack,
so let's get into the harness system
and talk about the features
and the thinking behind that.
So here, you can basically pull these straps up
and that will put it into duffel mode,
so you can carry it by the handles here like that,
and then that excess slack is sort
of taken up by the straps when you put
it into backpack mode.
So that's a decently slick system,
but better in thought than in practice
for a couple of reasons.
First of all, this bag is really wide
and when using it in duffel mode,
you kind of have to hold it far away from your body.
You can even go take a look at
the marketing photos on Nomatic's website.
You can actually see that people seem
to be holding it far away from their bodies.
Also, there is a button system on the duffel strap.
So every time I had these buttoned up
and I pulled this strap up,
these buttons came unbuttoned.
So there's definitely a lot of stuff
in here that I had that I was carrying around with me,
as anybody would with a pack of this size,
and that's just something that shouldn't happen
with this system. So I think that could've
been thought through a little bit more.
And lastly, the extra slack here makes
it a little odd to put this thing on as a backpack.
So a lot of the times I found myself slipping my hand
and then getting it caught on here,
versus just slipping it right through the strap itself.
Something you can probably get used to,
but also something worth noting with this system.
And we'll move on to the hip belt,
which is kind of more like a stomach belt
for me and my height.
But, it's definitely nice that they
have a detachable version.
I love when travel bag companies do this.
They offer a hip belt, but they also allow it
to be detachable.
Not everyone may want a lot
of those hip belts flapping around all the time,
so it's nice that Nomatic gives you the option.
Also the pockets here are slanted.
So that kind of enables you to get a nice,
top-down look at what's inside
of these pocketed hip belt compartments
when you're wearing the bag.
The only issue with the design of it
is that it's not 3D.
The pocket is not 3D and there's no flex in it.
So if you're planning to put something long
and rigid like your phone into it,
it's not really going to work out that well
when you have the hip belt in use
because you won't be able to curve
it around your body.
So if you're planning
on putting a couple flatter items in here,
that's totally fine.
The phone totally interrupts the function
of that hip belt.
And all of the other features live inside of the pack.
So Nomatic has kept the outside pretty minimal -
again, just making that large rectangle
that's going to fit most carry-on sizes
for most airlines.
All the other functionality is inside.
[upbeat music playing]
Alright, so starting with the bottom of the pack,
there is a nice shoe compartment here
to hold your shoes.
Really love when bag companies do that;
I think it works out really well.
And then one nice thing that Nomatic includes
that's unique to this pack
is this right here -
which is basically a little laundry basket
that you can take out, untwist,
boom, just hang on a doorway.
And if you're not planning on washing your clothing
at all on a trip and you just kind of want to,
like, fill up your dirty clothes in here
and stuff it right back into your bag
when you're done and you want to travel home,
that's totally awesome.
It can even be good for people
on the road that are washing their clothes
to kind of just have a place in the hotel room,
the Airbnb, the hostel,
to hold your dirty clothes in between washes.
Nice elastic band,
just kind of keeps itself nicely in place,
and then there's also an elastic band
in that shoe compartment
where you can just place that right into as well.
There's a similar pocket on the top-hand side,
so that's just going to unzip,
open right up.
It's a little bit smaller in height
than it is on the bottom with the shoe compartment,
but you have a lot of space here.
And then also, there's another pocket on the top,
which is a weather-resistant material compartment.
So you can see there's like,
a shiny-type tarpy material for this,
and the intention of that is
to fit your water bottle inside of it.
So since Nomatic didn't include
any external water bottle compartments
'cause they wanted to keep that boxy shape,
you still have that option on this bag on top.
Weather-proof material here
that's going to keep your stuff dry.
Definitely you can't fill this up with water, right?
But if you have a water bottle in there
and it drips around or it leaks a little bit,
it's totally going to be fine.
It might also be good for toiletries,
if you want to put those in there
and just take them out quickly at security,
since that zippered compartment is
at the top of the pack.
The reason why this pocket at the top
is a little bit more narrow is
because they leave some space here
for a felt-lined quick-grab pocket -
perfect for just stuffing in items into
as you're going through airport security.
Just generally putting stuff in there
that you want quick access to.
Moving on to the side here,
you've got a two-thirds pocket that goes here,
and then a one-thirds pocket that goes there.
One of the things about these pockets,
again, is that it's going to cut into
that space inside of the bag,
and it's not 3D, it won't stick out at all,
which is good.
However, when you're really packing
the inside of that bag up,
it can really eat into the sides
and the space that you have available
in these compartments, so just note that.
If the bag inside is stuffed,
the pockets on the outside will seem smaller.
Now moving around to the other side,
this pocket fully opens up
and reveals a bunch of additional organizational features,
which is pretty great.
So you have two stretchy mesh pockets
down here at the bottom,
you've got two kind of slider divider pockets here,
you've got that felt material on this side as well.
And then at the top here,
this unzips with a pretty large compartment going on.
On the other side, we have a pocket
of similar size.
However it's lined with this RFID-safe material -
so that's going to be good for things like passports,
credit cards, your phone,
anything that you want to block from external signals.
Whether you want a feature like this
is totally up to you, but it's there
should you utilize it.
And also it's just generally a great pocket to have,
even if you're not really concerned about
that RFID electronic security.
On this side the best pockets are going to
be the zippered ones. Because once you start putting things
into these nylon, stretchy pockets,
and these slider pockets over here,
you put the bag up, it starts getting jostled around.
A lot of that stuff is just going to get unorganized
and disorganized in your bag,
start falling out.
Granted it's still inside of the zippered pockets,
so you're not going to lose anything.
Obviously, make sure that's zipped up completely.
But you know, definitely, the zippered compartments
and pockets work a little bit better
than these ones that are more open,
just for holding and organizing your stuff
as you're using the bag.
Now getting on to the main event -
we're going to take a look at
this main clamshell compartment.
When you open this up it's basically a giant bucket inside.
So there's a lot of room in here;
very roomy compartment.
Just keep in mind that, you know,
the pockets on the bottom and these sides
are going to kind of eat into that main compartment.
But if you're mindful of how you pack this thing,
you have a ton of room.
You could fit two rows of packing cubes
within this thing, which is really great.
The main compartment's really maximized for space.
On this top tab here, this is where your laptop
and tablet go.
So you have a little tablet pocket right here,
and then you have a pocket up here for your laptop.
Had no problem fitting in a 15-inch Macbook Pro.
Now [laughs] the one part where this system
gets a little bit weird is -
one, if this bag is really full
and you're closing it, you're kind of
like, slamming your laptop down
to try to close it correctly.
And then since your laptop goes in here,
it makes this really rigid.
So if you want to get anything outside
of this main compartment and your laptop is inside,
it's really hard just to kind of open
this up a little bit, take a peek in,
and grab whatever you need.
Partially because of this security-type
of feature that they have here,
where the zipper is a little bit hidden,
which is a great feature, like,
as an anti-theft deterrent.
It makes it weird to peek inside of there.
And in combination with this thing
being super stiff, you kind of have
to open it up completely,
like that, to just get inside of this bag
and get anything you want.
It's harder to just like,
quick, grab your hand in there and grab something.
At the time of this review,
we've been testing the Nomatic Travel Bag
in cities like Joshua Tree,
Los Angeles, Detroit,
Minneapolis, and New York City.
Overall, the durability and quality of the pack
has held up. There's really no aesthetic dings
on the material at all,
and it looks pretty good and it's held up really well
in that amount of testing.
And with all of this testing
we were able to look at all those smart
and conceptual features,
and overall found that a couple
of them didn't really work as well in practice
than they did from a logical perspective.
So to wrap this thing up
with the pros and cons - for a pro
this thing is definitely maximum legal-sized carry-on.
That rectangular shape allows you
to have a lot of room inside of the pack
for all of your stuff.
The water-resistant water bottle pocket
and the shoe compartment,
as well as the laundry basket,
are great features that are smart in thought
and really good in practice.
The straps are nicely padded
and there's a good sternum strap
on this as well.
On to some of the cons -
the laptop positioning isn't ideal
for access or carry.
The duffel and shoulder strap system
is a little bit clunky in practice.
And the pack is seemingly trying
to do too much.
We wish they simplified it a little bit
and just focused on a couple of things,
versus trying to throw everything
and the kitchen sink into the design.
Overall, the Nomatic Travel Bag uses
some high-quality materials
and has some very smart thinking behind it.
However, with all the features going on,
it's seems greater in concept
than it is in practice,
and overall creates a clunky experience
in some areas.
Thanks for taking a look at our review
on the Nomatic Travel Bag.
Be sure to head over to packhacker.com/newsletter,
sign up for our newsletter,
and never miss an update.
We'll see you in the next video.
The water-resistant water bottle pocket...
...water-resistant water bottle pocket...
...that is a...that's a tongue-twister.
Yeah, that's a good feature, I like that.
Good feature.