GRID Duffel Backpack

The duffel seems good at first, but it quickly becomes apparent that it's meant to be used in backpack mode more than anything else. Carrying it around as a duffle becomes a pain as the handles don't have any sort of padding and just dig into your skin after a while. The other issue is the extra straps and hooks that seemingly have no function besides aesthetics. These have a tendency to just come undone and flop around. This became a huge issue if you make the same mistake I did and check your duffel for a flight. When luggage was rolling out for retrieval, one of those straps had come undone and ended up getting caught in the conveyor belt. This halted ALL luggage coming out, and eventually the employees working there just ripped it off to get things moving again. So, an embarrassing moment and now I have a damaged duffel. Save your money or spend it on something better.

Ekster has deleted my two previous reviews for this bag. The first two attempts were 2 stars. Now it's one star since they keep deleting these.

This is not a good duffel and it is not a good backpack. I really wanted to like this bag because I love my Ekster Weekender and GRID Backpack and thought a duffel would perfectly round out the collection. But this bag just misses the mark on so many different areas.... where to start:

1) There is no included cross body strap with this duffel. How you can even call this a duffel without a crossbody strap is beyond me. This bag is 40 liters! Your hands are going to get tired when this thing is all packed out while traveling through an airport. Where is the cross body shoulder strap? Using one of the backpack straps as a cross-body looks janky, obviously isn't designed for this use case, pads the wrong part of the strap, and while it's over your shoulder, the bog is horribly off-balance when you try this. Using the cross-body strap from an Arlo Skye Weekender bag helped alleviate some of these issues - but there's no real good spots to attach one single cross-body strap. Just a huge miss here. It's like the coolest looking duffel ever made - but really stinks as a duffel.

2) Why do I want to use this as a duffel and not a backpack? Because it's not a good backpack at all. Ekster already has an INCREDIBLE backpack. It's called the GRID and it's phenomenal. Firstly, the way the backpack straps attach to this duffel is very troubling. The two top anchor points for the bookbag straps are small, little threaded side loops that are very hard to operate and don't instill any confidence in their strength once you get them on (the loops are already starting to show wear). And once you get them on, using this bag as a bookbag is very challenging since it's a duffel that opens up clamshell like. Getting your laptop and other essentials out of the bag REQUIRES you to take it off and place it on the ground to access them. I don't know about you, but I always don't have space on the floor around me to access needed items in my bag. There is no, sliding the bag sideways to access an admin compartment or anything like that at all. It's actually so poor of a backpack that you'll want to use a real backpack for travel and just use this "duffel" as a duffel (which is what I do).

3) Uncomfortable handles. The same uncomfortable handle is present on the GRID Backpack and the earlier Weekender bag - but that's all fine because the main modality of the backpack is to wear it like a backpack (very comfortable) and the weekender has the cross-body strap which makes it a very comfortable carry. This duffel's handles are extremely uncomfortable. I would recommend that the engineers and designers over at Ekster take a look at what Alpaka is doing with their seatbelt handles. Their backpacks, Tech Brief Pro, and Tote Bags all have luxurious and padded handles that feel amazing and comfortable to use for long periods of time. This bag does not.

4) Terrible "tactical" side straps and mounting points. While these look cool and are practical in lots of use cases - they fail in almost every way on this duffel. The reason why this design works so well on the GRID is that bag is designed to always be in the vertical position. For the duffel, it seems that the designers over at Ekster obviously treated this duffel as a backpack. They must be thinking that we all want to use this crazy bag as a backpack and not a duffel. Because these side straps only work properly when the bag is used in the vertical, backpack, position. If you use it as a duffel - no matter how tight you make these side mounting straps - no matter how full or how little you have packed in the bag - if using horizontally... all of these straps will come undone. I cannot tell you how many times this happened to me at the airport. Wearing my GRID backpack and hand carrying the duffel. These stupid mounting straps came undone like every ten minutes and I am constantly dragging these metal fitted straps across the floor of the airport. Makes a cool, hip guy look like a moron real quick. I hate this problem more than any of the other problems with the bag. It is the most annoying thing about the bag, by far.

IN CONCLUSION

For a bag this expensive, and the thought and care that obviously went into the GRID Backpack... none of that refinement or usability translated to this duffel. It's such a shame because there's a lot to like about the bag... the materials for the most part are beautiful, the bag itself, looks awesome and for a duffel bag - I love the clamshell opening. Really allows you to pack it out.

For the record, I have owned duffels from Aer, Arlo Skye, Boundary Supply, Evergoods, and Bellroy. Every single duffel sold by one of them is such a better duffel than this one. I would recommend all buyers interested in this bag to hold off until Ekster releases a version 2. Because so far - this bag is a disa...

GRID Duffel Backpack