Product Review: Eastpak TravelPack 42L
A truly awful bag with some significant design flaws
Bought one of these bags for my recent Amtrak journey from Chicago to San Francisco.
https://www.eastpak.com/uk-en/luggage-c140/travelpack-pEK-0A5BBR-3O7-OS--1-.html
I’m generally a fan of Eastpak products. I have a number of their bags and cases, as do other family members. I saw this on their website, and was particularly taken with the Tarp Petrol (Green) colour. I purchased it from Absolute Snow in the UK (http://www.absolute-snow.co.uk) who I’ve used before and have been absolutely fantastic over this issue. I would definitely use them again.
So what’s the problem? It has some utterly shit design flaws. In fact, I can’t even call them design flaws, as I cant believe anyone actually designed some of the elements of this bag.
The “point of difference” of this bag / backpack is that it can be used as a backpack - it has backpack straps (more on those later) but it has hand straps behind some zips which means it can be used as a hold-all / duffle type bag.
It has a mesh type elasticated drinks bottle holder on one side…. Guess which side they put it on… yep - the side opposite the bag straps. So if you try and use it as a hold-all and have a drinks bottle in it, the drinks bottle is now on the floor, and the bag is wobbling about on top of the drinks bottle.
”How about the backpack straps?” First trip I made with this bag - in fact the first 6 hours of using it the strap fastenings broke on one side. The plastic clip pin mechanism thingy was in no way secure enough to use the bag with even a moderate amount of stuff in it. Having experienced this I noted a few other purchasers have also had this happen to them… still, at least you can use it in the other configuration….except for the drinks bottle issue.
Storage in the main compartment is ok, but on the outside there are a myriad of completely useless zips that don’t give you access to any meaningful pockets that should be the staple of any such bags.
As soon as I got back I carried out the returns process and got a full refund. Well done Absolute Snow. Shit bag Eastpak.
Price paid £79.95
