Hey it's Tom from Pack Hacker and in this video we're going to be taking a look at
the Osprey Farpoint 40 - both the large and the small versions. Here at Pack Hacker we
share our travel tips and tricks, we share guides and we do travel gear
reviews just like this one. So if you're new here, consider subscribing.
Nathan, our video editor and contributor, and also a vlogger over at 'Always a
Friday', has been traveling with the Osprey Farpoint 40 along with his
partner Rebecca for about the past year. So we put our heads together and we came
up with some thoughts on the Osprey Farpoint 40. Let's jump into the review.
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If you've ever searched the internet for 'best travel backpack' or wandered around
your local camping or sporting goods store, chances are you've come across the
Osprey Farpoint series before. It's one of the most popular bags for travelers
due to its availability. Now the Farpoint comes in four different sizes --
a 40 litre, a 55 litre, a 70 litre and a whopping 80 litre backpack.
Now the ones we've been testing are the 40 litre versions. They're the only ones that fit
to carry-on specifications. And since we're all about traveling as lightly as
possible here at Pack Hacker, these bags made the most sense. Being six foot four I
went with the ML version or the medium/large version. And Rebecca being
five foot seven went with the SM version or the small/medium version. Now they're
both exactly the same bag, but the SM version is a tiny little bit shorter and
has two litres less capacity. And I'll be bringing Rebecca a little bit later on
in the video to come in and get her take on the bag and just the small differences
between them. Now after traveling with both these packs for over a year we
think we know them pretty well. So let's get into it.
The Osprey Farpoint looks like a travel backpack and that's fine because well,
that's exactly what it is! It comes in three different colors with the
obligatory fancy names - a Volcanic Gray, a Jasper Red and a Caribbean Blue; or in
other words - grey, red and blue. This pack comes in at 3.17 pounds or
1.44 kilograms. And at maximum dimensions this pack is 21 inches
in length, 14 inches in width and 9 inches in depth. So the main
material of this bag is 210D Nylon Mini Hex Diamond rip stop. And that basically
means it's some pretty strong lightweight fabric. The rip stop material
of this bag basically means that it's resistant to any tearing and rips, but
that doesn't mean it's impossible. Now the ML version of the bag we had has
done incredibly well without showing any signs of wear and tear. But the SM
version of the bag has got some very, very small tears and kind of pretty much
just little nicks basically. Now we're putting this down to the fact that we
checked this bag into the hold of an aircraft a few times and the way they
kind of throw them around and they go on the belts etc. Whereas this one we
didn't and that's done absolutely fine. Now obviously these bags are meant
for carry-on so I wouldn't worry about it too much. And the good thing is, is
that this rip-stop material has basically meant that the small kind of
nicks in the material have stopped and they haven't gotten any larger. So that's good.
Now this bag doesn't claim to be
waterproof but we found it to be very, very water resistant. That being said
however, if you've got laptops and notebooks in the front of this thing
you're still going to want to pick up a rain cover. And what this will do is go
over the entirety of the front of the pack and just save it from any potential
downpour that you may find yourself in. Now we only used this maybe once or twice
in a year, but it's great to know that you've got it in your bag if you need it.
Now at first glance it doesn't look like the Osprey Farpoint has too much fancy
stuff going on, but there's actually some really nifty stuff here. Now one of our
favorite things about this bag is that the back, the straps harness and hip belt
all zip away at the back of the bag. So you unravel this thing here,
fold it over the back and basically strap it up.
And what this does, is it means that everything is hidden at the back of the bag and
there's basically no loose stuff coming off. And this is really handy when you're
say at the airport and you're getting onto an aircraft, or you want to store it away.
And obviously you can have the straps at the back, but it just makes it so much
easier that they are strapped away and hidden. And we really, really like this
feature. For added security the zips on this bag are lockable, which basically
means when you push them together they'll provide a little hole for you to
pop a padlock through. Now these zips aren't YKK, but we found them to be
really durable. As we said before we've had this bag for over a year. We've had
the bag super full and really yanking at the zips, and we haven't had a problem
with any of them - so all good there. Adding even more security to this pack
are the compression straps on the front of this thing.
Now what happens here is when you've strapped this in, what it does is it
pulls a bit of material over the zip basically. So that means when this thing
is strapped in you can't undo the zip, which is really cool. And also they help
with a little bit of sturdiness when you pop something in the front this bag. We
like to pop our tripod in the front here and that'll go under one of these straps
and it will just secure it a little bit more tightly. That being said with the
mesh pockets on this thing, when this bag is really full and all the room is
compressed inside there's not too much room in here. You kind of struggle to
get like a hand in. But it will work with small bottles but anything too large,
when this bag is full, you probably can't get it in. Now the shoulder straps on
this thing are comfortable and well- padded, and you have the hip belt and the
sternum strap for added load-lifting comfort. Now when the hip belt isn't
locked in it doesn't flail around too much, and also the sternum strap doesn't
dig in either - so all solid wins in this department.
Now this bag has a top handle and it also has a side handle as well. Now they're
really nice and really well padded, but they're hardly ever used. And also they
throw in a shoulder strap, which is this thing here. It attaches onto these two
points here but if you've got this bag, a 40 litre bag at full weight, you don't
really want it hanging off your shoulder. But nevertheless they've given it to us.
We've never used ours but you can if you want to.
Now the main compartment in this
thing is a large clamshell design. And what that means is that it opens up all
the way so you have access to everything inside all at once. And Osprey sums this
up really well on their website by saying it's carried like a backpack but
packed like a suitcase. Now with this bag, because it's a clamshell design, you
don't necessarily need packing cubes but we'd still strongly recommend them for
the added organization. Now in this main compartment you have a large mesh pocket
here. And although you can't put anything too bulky in there we found it works
really well with our Cocoon Grid-It. And that will just slide in there and you
can zip up really easily. And also inside you've got some compression straps - which
basically means when this bag is full you can put them over the top of everything
and just compress everything down if you need to. Other than the main compartment,
there's also this front compartment here. Now at first glance it looks pretty big.
And when it's empty you can probably think you're gonna fit a load of stuff in
there. But when the main compartment is full and you've got everything in there
as tight as it can be, what happens is that this front compartment gets really
compressed and the same with the mesh straps on the front - you can't really fit
that much in here. That being said however - the laptop compartment, which
will fit a 15-inch laptop really easily, is really good. There's a bit of padding,
not a crazy amount, but ours have been completely fine. Also there's another
mesh pocket here as well and that's good for say tablets or smaller notebooks, and
we found it good for notepads as well and bits of paper - it's
really handy. One of the downsides to this pack however is that the laptop
compartment is on the front. Meaning when a laptop is in here usually they're
quite heavy and it sits quite far away from your bag when this thing is on your back.
Meaning the weight distribution isn't as
good as it necessarily could be. There is one last little pocket on this thing and
this is this little one at the top front of the bag. Just a small zip pocket. You
won't fit too much stuff inside of here, but it's good for kind of quick grab
items like passports, maybe a hand sanitizer, pens and stuff like that. Great
for when you're going through an airport and you just need to chuck things in it
really quickly. That little pocket comes in super helpful. And also one
last thing to know about this pack is that the straps here, when they're done
up, you don't actually have access to the zips. Meaning if everything's done up and
you need to grab something out of the main compartment,
you've got to undo these little straps here and then get inside the bag. So again one
of the main reasons this little small pocket at the front comes in really handy.
We've been using these Osprey 40-litre backpacks for just over a year now.
We've had them up in the mountains of Nepal, we've had them on Cambodian
beaches, even on the back of a scooter in Myanmar and we've trusted them the entire
time. Even though we've only had a couple of rips and tears just in this pack here,
Osprey do offer what they call an almighty guarantee. Now at first it
sounds great and it will cover you for the lifetime of the bag. That being said
however it may not last as long as you would think. Now Osprey determined
something called a 'reasonable lifetime' and with these bags in particular, they
say they're used everyday which means the reasonable lifetime may be shorter
than you would think originally. Now we're not entirely sure how long it is
with these bags, maybe a couple of years but definitely not a lifetime.
Now I'm going to pull Rebecca in who is going to give us a quick insight into
the two different bags, and also her quick take on it all.
Hello! So Nathan had the ML bag and I had the SM. I'm around five foot seven, Nathan
is around six foot four, and we found the cutoff to be about five foot eight. So
one thing that's very important to note is that even though it's called the Farpoint 40,
the SM is actually only 38 litres. Now in comparison I noticed a really big
difference. You wouldn't have thought you would, but at full capacity I found
Nathan's bag really, really too heavy for me and the actual size a bit too big for
my back as well. So if you're five foot eight and under, I do
recommend that you get the SM size. So what I really loved about this bag is
the zips are fantastic; there was no issues with those. And I love that you
have so many pockets as well - inside, outside, the laptop sleeve - these were as
handy and I sort of hung my boots on these as well. I mean yeah I absolutely
love this bag so much. Now on to some of the pros of this pack - we found the
longevity to be really good even after one year of pretty full-on travel
they've held up really well. Even though we've just had a couple of small tears
and nicks on this one, because of that rip-stop material they haven't gotten
any larger. The straps, harness and hip belt on this bag all zip away which is
really handy, and creating a low-profile of carry when you're getting onto an
aircraft or you're stowing this bag away. This bag is also very comfortable even
at full capacity, which is great because when you're traveling this thing's going
to be on your back nearly all the time. Now on to some of the cons - when the main
compartment is full, when you've got everything crammed in there, it does
limit the space in the front compartment and the front mesh pockets.
The laptop compartment is at the front of the bag which means that when it's on
your back it's quite far away from your body, which isn't ideal for weight
distribution. And finally the questionable 'reasonable lifetime'
guarantee. We're not entirely sure how long Osprey will cover this bag and it
just gets a bit confusing if anything were to go wrong with it.
Thanks for taking a look at our review of the Osprey Farpoint 40.
If you're not there already head over to packhacker.com and you can
kind of check out the full review that we've done in text format. We sometimes
add additional detail in there, and we'll always keep track of everything on the
usage timeline as this thing continues to kind of hold up and we use it for
longer. Also be sure to check out Nathan and Rebecca at 'Always a Friday'. They're
doing some really great traveling around Japan, Malaysia and now they're doing a
lot of Europe. So be sure to follow them for some tips and tricks and just
general travel guides. Thanks for checking this out, we'll see you in the
next video.
The stunnin, stunnin.
Hello! just coming, very British hello.
The longevity ... longevity ...
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