Summary

Knack Inc. started with a goal of creating the #onebaglife. Every day life includes school, work, travel, the gym, and many other experiences that one might need a bag for. Enter the Knack Pack, and the idea that one bag can meet the needs for all the events and experiences of the every day.

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Disclosure: Some of the links here are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

I picked up the sangria red (for obvious reasons) Series 1 Medium Knack Pack to do just that, solve the problem of my every day carry needs, with a hint of solutions for overnight travel. The medium Knack Pack fits up to a 15” laptop and expands to give you space for 2-3 days of clothing for short travel. Some other key features include:

  • Spacious interior storage including fleece lined pocket for fragile valuables.

  • Hide-able water bottle pocket.

  • Trolly sleeve for dropping onto wheeled luggage for easy transport.

  • Water resistant fabric and zipper technology.

  • Molded comfort cool foam.

I have had this bag for roughly 8 months, and have been able to put in some time with it in order to dig into the pros and cons of what it has to offer. That being said, below you will see some keep pros and cons that I have put together over the last 8 months.

Wins

The bag covers all my needs for every day carry (and more) and gives you the expandable space for gym and travel.

I am a bit of a design and productivity snob, and those of you who might be reading this that can relate will understand how a good design hits all the feels. My desire for optimum productivity throughout the day is put as ease with the spacing of interior and exterior bag elements, particularly for someone like myself with large hands.

One of my biggest pet peeves is cord chaos, and until we are no longer at the mercy of batteries, is a struggle I will continue to face, but the Knack team did a great job creating a pocket at the bottom of the bag to stuff cords without the worry of disrupting other items in the main storage space.

Another annoying factor in daily travel, particularly for those of us in metro areas where a bit of walk is in order each day, is excess strap slack floating through the air like my paper recycling on a windy day. I run after it and jump and stomp like a crazy person and can never seem to keep it in contained. Knack did a great job creating a solution for this issue with elastic bands that are designed into the shoulder strap to wind up and contain the excess strap on either side.

A decent number of things I carry should be in padded spaces of the bag, and most bags only have one or two of these. Knack has provided plenty of padding throughout the bag to ease the worry of bringing along you more fragile items like hard drives or sunglasses.

One of the biggest reasons for giving the Knack Pack a ride for me was the ability to expand the secondary space for travel. The Knack team has done this well, having made the expansion process quick and easy, and the storage optimized and effective.

Like I mentioned previously, the Knack Pack has a great amount of padding inside and out. This allows for a very comfort wear, whether your commute is 15 minutes or an hour. Travel carry is a little less comfortable for obvious reasons, but still better than almost every other bag I have tried for that use!

I, despise having to carry my water bottle, generally because I have other things to carry that won’t fit in my bag, usually Amazon packages. I also hate bags that have a random water bottle net that serves no purpose when no bottle is inside. I know this seems like a small issue, but that is exactly the point, Knack has taken everything into consideration. When the bottle pocket is not in use, it can be hidden via zipper. When it IS in use, unzipping the pocket reveals a space for the bottle. It is a subtle design aspect that I greatly appreciate.

Inside the main compartment you will find plenty of space for notebooks, books, headphones, etc. Along with the large open space for these items is a padded soft pocket for your tablet. You should not have any issue fitting anything you might need for the every day travel in this space!

I used to travel a lot, and this is something that you don’t realize you need until you don’t have it. The Knack team did a great job implementing the trolly sleeve so it there and easy to use when you need it, and disappears behind the straps when you don’t. If desired, you can also tuck the should straps into the sleeve to carry the bad briefcase style. This is also helpful if you end up having to stow your luggage so the straps don’t get caught in the conveyor belt!

Opportunities

Although I believe the Knack team solved this in their Series 2, this was hard to overcome for me. Although I do almost everything digitally, I still like to write with good old fashioned pen and paper on occasion. There are places for pens, pencils, etc, however, I much prefer a pen sleeve.

The medium size states it is designed for laptops up to 15”. I had a MacBook Pro 15” and it was a bit of a struggle to get into the bag pocket cleanly. It certainly got easier as I broke the bag in over time, but to this day it still takes a little stretch to get in.

The top fleece lined pocket is a must have for quick access to sunglasses, wallet, keys, etc. Although the bag has this, the opening is a bit slim, making it difficult to get things in and out with ease. The interior also has two slots, which contributing to the difficulty is you were trying to get into one pocket or the other. This also broke in over time, but is also still a little difficult to this day.

This is probably one of my biggest struggles with the bag. The lower front pocket is designed in a manner where it unzips on one or both sides beneath a flap, which I believe is designed to help manage water if traveling outside in rain. Opening both flaps gives you full access to the front pocket, while opening one side can give you quick access while on-the-move. In theory this is a great idea, but in practice I struggled with getting into easily and then zipping back up with the top point of the pocket secured under the flap. I was also not a big fan of the layout of this pocket interior in general. It is optimized for cards and larger items, but I generally do not keep money or cards in my bags. It is, however, RFID blocking material, so could be helpful for frequent travelers.

I think every review I read before buying this bag mentions this, and I agree, why the orange interior?? The world may never know. I’m mostly kidding, as it is designed to be contrasting so you can easily find items in the bag, even in low light. I think I’d be willing to give that up for some better colors schemes, but that’s just me.

Final Thoughts

In short, I’m confident that the Knack Pack can solve your every day carry needs as well. If you are looking for an overnight solution as well, you can look no further. Despite a handful of cons listed above, none of them would deter me from moving to a Knack Pack in an effort to live the #onebaglife!

Disclosure: Some of the links here are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.