Review: Osprey Farpoint 40 Rucksack

- product provided for the purpose of review by outdoorkit.co.uk -

Hi everyone, today's review is of the Osprey Farpoint 40 Rucksack, designed as a carry-on bag for weekends away. Here's what Osprey has to say:

"The Farpoint 40 is our lightest back-packable travel pack that fits within EU carry-on dimensions. Featuring a zip-away spacer mesh ventilated backpanel allowing the Farpoint to be carried like a backpack but packed like a suitcase. Cushioned carry handles on the top and the sides allow you to easily grab the pack off airport baggage carousels, we’ve included a removable shoulder strap. Your gear is all readily to hand, with the inclusion of a large zippered opening that allows access to the main compartment, featuring lockable zips for increased security. The inner compression straps allow you to fully maximise the capacity whilst securing your clothes thus limiting creases. Look a little closer and you’ll also find a top stash pocket for electronics and sunglasses, dual mesh front pockets for water bottles and a padded internal laptop sleeve. Our unique StraightJacket™ compression system pulls your load in – holding it tight, but it can also be used to significantly reduce the total volume of the pack. Making the Farpoint 40 the ideal travel companion for your next business meeting or weekend get-away."

After playing around with the Farpoint, I was glad to see Osprey have continued to maintain their high standards of manufacture and quality. Well thought out features have been partnered with great design, fabrics and price.

Let's start with the internal features of the main pack: internal compression straps help make the most of the space, a large mesh pocket helps keep things organised within the compartment and there's a solid back to keep things tidy. 

The structure of the bag really helps you absolutely cram it with stuff. I headed off to Morrocco for two and half weeks where I knew there would be a mix of temperatures and humidity so plenty of clothing was a must, I managed 6 pairs of socks, 10 pairs of underwear, 5 t-shirts, 4 pairs of trousers, 1 jumper, 1 fleece, 1 waterproof jacket and 1 pair of waterproof trousers, along with a microfleece towel. Bearing in mind the bag is designed for weekends away and short breaks there is a huge amount of room in the main compartment. The compression straps work well, they were a little on the thin side but they handled the big load with ease and really do make everything fit in, they're secured to the rigid back panel securely and there were no signs or indications of stress after use. 

The internal mesh pocket is good thinking on the design team's part, the way the pack is engineered you can strap things down within the main compartment and still fit more in the mesh - great if you forget to put something in but still want it stowed away. 

Moving away from the internals of the main compartment there's a smaller, pouch with a laptop/tablet sleeve, another zipped mesh compartment and room for a book or two. On my travels this became my go to pouch for storing things on the go without showing everyone my smelly pairs of socks. There's plenty of room for chargers, tablets, phones, guidebooks, etc. 

Tough zips feature everywhere on this pack

There's also a small pocket at the very top of rucksack designed for sunglasses, phones or wallets. It's a handy size but a little vulnerable and obvious for anything that's too valuable. 

Moving on to the outside of the rucksack: zipaway harness and hipbelt, shoulder strap, 2 carry handles and 2 water bottle holders. 

Osprey have continued the well thought out design with the back of the pack, the zipaway harness and hipbelt system is easily revealed or hidden if you're on the move or settling in at a hostel. A smart feature for cabin luggage where space is in short supply, it helps make the Farpoint a tidy bag for travel. There's also the shoulder strap option, which is easy to remove if you just want to use the bag as a rucksack, I ended up only using the shoulder strap on my travels as the bag hangs very nicely with it. 

Zipaway harness and hipbelt.

The two carry handles feel strong, they seem to be attached below the external fabric and "locked in" with another pieces of fabric on the inside of the pack. 

All these features feel like they're there to help you, not as gimmicks that have been thrown on to get sales, there's multiple handles and straps for when you're on the move, there's compression straps to get the most out of the space provided, there's a touch of modern with the inclusion of a laptop sleeve and overall there's a sense of quality.

In use I found this bag to be brilliant and I couldn't have asked for more, it just works. It keeps on working, taking the bumps and scrapes that travel brings, it can definitely fit kit in for a weekend away or a longer adventure if you're heading off somewhere for a week or two. 

I'd definitely recommend this rucksack to a friend!

Thanks for reading my review of the Osprey Farpoint 40, if you'd like anymore information please click this link to see the rucksack on outdoorkit.co.uk.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank outdoorkit.co.uk for their continued support of my blog, if you'd like to ask them any questions about the Farpoint 40 then please try their Facebook or Twitter.

Review: Osprey Aether 70 Rucksack

Review time! Today's review is the Osprey Aether 70, a pack made by Osprey who are an American company with manufacturer taking place in Vietnam.

RRP - £160
Weight - 2.24kg

Osprey description - "Lightweight and comfortable Aether 70 is a versatile pack with adequate space and organization for weekend or weeklong trips lasting 3 to 7 days"

This pack is also under the backpacking/mountaineering category.

Initial thoughts

Straight away you can see the toughness of the pack, when holding it the fabric feels strong and there is a lot of stitching keeping it all together, as I mentioned in my previous review, I love strong and well made kit and this bag straight away filled me with confidence. In the shop I managed to have it weighted up with a few bits of kit just to get a feel of the pack when loaded and it felt like part of me! The range of sizing options allow for this pack to be fiddled and jiggled till it's just right. This is a very large pack for me as my normal pack is a 52 litre and a bit more streamlined.

Overall the initial impression of the pack is that it's well made, a thought through design and should be able to handle 3 days camping with ease due to its size.

Field testing 

The reason I bought this pack was for a trip to Scotland to supervise a couple of Gold DofE teams in the Cairngorms so some really good testing conditions!

As I said before this pack is big so getting my kit in for a 2 night/3 day expedition was easy - sleeping bag and sleeping mat fit together snugly at the bottom of the pack with clothes/food/stove/gas fitting in comfortably above them - even managed to sneak in a luxury inflatable pillow! This bag has a special hip belt which allows for the pads to be molded to a person, unfortunately the store in which I bought this bag doesn't have the correct machine but even without the custom molding the bag is super comfy on your back, after adjusting the back and getting the Osprey bladder in to the bag I was ready to take on some serious walking!

The first day of walking is always the hardest especially when you're carrying a not-so-technical tent and emergency group kit for a 3 day expedition - this pack really helped me focus on the map work and keeping hydrated due to the comfort and weight distribution. I find some big bags can cause problems in windy conditions due to the added surface area of you as an object but the Osprey has 3 tightening straps which help bring the pack in and bring that surface area down, I found that on some of the more exposed part of the walk the bag would catch the wind a bit but I think it's fair to say you'd expect this from most 70+ litre packs.

Once we arrived at our wild campsite - a beautiful lake located up around 1,000 metres - we got around to setting up the tent, getting the bed ready and sorting some food! This pack has a feature known as J-panel access - basically on the front of the bag there is a zip which allows for access as if the bag were a holdall as opposed to reaching into the unknown and hoping to grab what you're looking for - this feature was really useful as I may have not packed in the most efficient order meaning food was not near the top! I had some worries about the position of the zip, if this was to break then the pack could easily become quite redundant - I think Osprey have thought about this as the zip used is a very tough weather resistant one, so the weight and durability factor was taken into account.

Day two was a very gentle day walking down from 1,000m up to around 700m and following a stunning river towards the next camp which was around 15 miles away by the Corrour bothy. The pack was a tad lighter due to dinner and breakfast being eaten and a little less water in the bladder because of the proximity of the river. Once again the rucksack felt really nice on the shoulders even though they were a little sore - I think the pack caused some of the soreness, maybe due to rubbing but also because my mat had decided to break and cold Scottish ground doesn't do wonders for the back, neck and shoulder area. We continued on to the night 2 camp after seeing both groups and catching up with them. Once again the J-panel access feature was useful and the pack was handling being thrown around the Scottish wilderness quite well, no damage was showing up which I was impressed by as there had been a few overly casual pack throwing incidents.

Day 3 was the final day of walking and what we had been waiting for finally arrived... Scottish rain! We didn't get walking till around 11am as we had to wait for the group to pass through before we continued pass them and out of the mountains through the Charlemagne Gap. Me being the super mountain man I am didn't realise that there's a waterproof liner located somewhere within the pack - luckily I always bag up all my equipment within dry bags so this didn't cause too much of an issue - I would have liked to be made more aware of this sort of feature as it could have cost me a few night's sleep on a longer expedition. After a 12 mile walk in the rain (felt like many more miles!) we got back to the minibus and went off to find a bunkhouse!

A few extra little points which I really like about this bag; there's a small message on the inside about the ethics of the outdoors and reminds people to leave no trace when out camping in wilderness, plenty of straps and cords to get the bag really tight together and bring down the surface area and the guarantee is lifelong for defects and damage - there's something very nice about a company with that much confidence in their own product!

Positive points!

Very well made
Strong fabric
J-Panel Access
Cost
Custom molded hip belt*
Zip Pulls**

*Although I didn't have access to the machine which heats up the heat belt I'm sure this could only be a positive as it brings the pack closer in to your body and allows for a better distribution of weight on your hips.

**Didn't really mention these in the review but each zip has a good sized loop attached which helps when the fingers are a little numb!

Not-so-positive points!

Sore shoulders on day 2 may have been caused by the pack but it's hard to say.

Summary

This is a really well made pack produced by one of my favorite rucksack manufacturers with a lifelong guarantee and a solid build quality. I'm very glad I brought this pack and it's still going strong around 11 months after purchase - as with most products of this quality the real test will be how long it lasts and I'll mention it in the blog if anything goes wrong! Really impressed with how the rucksack performed and I'm going to try and take it on a longer expedition to push the weight distribution and see how much kit it can take! If and when this happens I'll put up another post with any more findings and feelings towards the Aether.

Solid pack and super comfy! I'd definitely recommend purchasing this pack to a friend.