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Aer Travel Duffel Bag Review
Cost: $170
Capacity: 35 liters
Dimensions: 21.3” x 12.6” x 9.1” (54 x 32 x 23 cm)
Style: Duffel Bag
Weight: 2.5 lbs (1.13 kg)
Laptop: 15.6”
Materials: 1680D Cordura ballistic nylon, #10 YKK zippers, Duraflex hardware
Origin: Manufactured in China
Overall Impression, Aesthetic
The Aer Travel Duffel is a sturdy, minimalist bag that’s easy to carry, and even easier to pack. I love the simple design and sturdy materials. The huge main compartment holds your clothes and gear, while a few well-placed pockets organize your electronics and smaller items.
Materials, Colors, and Size
Material
I really like the outer 1680 denier nylon fabric, used for the exterior fabric of the Aer Travel Duffel Bag. It’s durable, yet soft to the touch, with a much thicker weave pattern than most other nylon fabrics. Because it’s so soft, you don’t have the problem of shirt chafing you get with rougher 1000D Cordura.
Zippers and Hardware
They use the largest, most durable hardware you can get in a travel pack, with YKK Zippers and Duraflex Hardware. The main compartment and front slash pocket both use huge #10 zippers, with smaller #8’s on the other two exterior pockets. However only the main compartment is lockable, with no good way to secure the laptop compartment zipper.
WaterProofness
The fabric is considered water resistant, and it definitely is, but this is more due to the thick basket weave fabric than any water resistant coating.
The front compartment and laptop compartment both use YKK Aquaguard zippers. Which definitely help prevent leaks, but you shouldn’t consider this a waterproof pack.
External Components
The exterior of the Aer Duffel Bag is sleek and minimalist. There are two organizational pockets, a laptop compartment, top compression straps, two side carry handles, a water bottle pocket and a cross-body shoulder carry strap.
Organizational Pockets
The exterior pockets are well placed and well organized. The front slash pocket is huge, with several inches of its own volume. Inside are three small dividers, a zippered pocket and a larger divider big enough for a tablet. The rest of the pocket is easily large enough for a jacket, but it’s a tight squeeze to get one in there.
The slash pocket behind the top carry handle is small and unpadded. But it’s large enough to hold my sunglasses, cell phone, travel wallet, and travel adapter all at the same time.
Water Bottle Pocket
The water bottle pocket on the Aer Travel Duffel Bag is well designed. Located on the side of the bag, it’s hard to notice when not in use, but holds a surprisingly large water bottle.
The strap is held in place with a hidden stretch cord on the side, that expands to fit almost any sized water bottle you want to put in here. The bag is designed to be carried upward and stands flat on the bottom so you don’t need to worry about your bottle falling out.
Laptop Compartment
The laptop compartment on the Aer Travel Duffel Bag is a top access pocket located on the back of the bag, with decent foam padding on both the front and back. It has a large water resistant YKK zipper, but unfortunately, there’s no good way to lock this zipper, except to attach it to the top compression strap.
This pocket is large enough to hold up to a 15.6” laptop, but it doesn’t have a false bottom to keep your laptop away from the edge. The bottom of the compartment goes all the way to the bottom of the pack, with just a thin piece of foam padding as protection against damage.
Carry Options
The Aer Travel Duffel Bag has two modes of carry: a cross-body shoulder strap and two side carry handles.
Shoulder Straps
The shoulder strap is a thick nylon strap, that attaches to the ends of the pack with beefy Duraflex clips. The shoulder pad is made with two layers of padding: a firm foam backing material, with a softer breathable foam on the bottom covered in mesh.
Carry Comfort
For me duffel bags are always easy to carry for short distances, but become more uncomfortable than backpacks over long distances. At 35 liters, the Aer Travel Duffel Bag is about the largest size duffel I would want to carry around with only a cross body strap, and no backpack straps.
The shoulder strap is decently padded, and works great for short carry durations, but I would like to see it a little thicker and wider if I was planning on using this as my only international travel pack.
I’ve taken this bag on several multi-day business trips so far and It’s great for transporting your gear in and out of airports and hotels, but I have yet to haul it around town all day on a long international trip.
Interior Components and Design
The main compartment of the Aer Travel Duffel Bag is large and straightforward to pack. The entire lid opens from the side, and flips up to reveal a large suitcase style main compartment, with a large mesh zipper pocket located on the lid.
Packing Style
You can pack this compartment any way you like, but I like to use packing cubes, especially with duffel bags. They help keep your gear organized in the large compartment.
The Aer Packing cubes arent’ compatible with the Travel Duffel so I tested a few other styles. I found these Eagle Creek Medium Specter Tech Cubes to fit perfectly in the main compartment. These cubes are compressible, but any cube with dimensions about 14” x 10” x 3” will fit great in here.
Packing two of these cubes with clothes on the bottom allows plenty of room on top for your other gear. I’ve packed a small cube with socks and underwear, a toiletry kit, a rain jacket, and a puffy jacket.
Aer Travel Duffel Bag Summary
Pros
The Aer Travel Duffel Bag is a well-designed duffel with great exterior and interior organization, made from durable materials and hardware. So far I’ve used this mostly for business travel, and it works great. It’s sleek, professional, well designed and easy to clean.
It’s easy to pack the huge main compartment, but it has enough room in the external pockets to keep your electronics and small gear organized.
Cons
My main critiques are the laptop compartment. The lack of a locking zipper, or a false bottom to protect your laptop are big oversights in an otherwise awesome pack.
I like the Aquaguard zippers, but Aer could increase the water-resistance by adding a DWR coating to the fabric.
And the shoulder strap is great for short duration carry, but the padding isn’t thick enough to carry a pack of this size around all day.
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