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Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack
Cost: $140
Capacity: 46 liters
Dimensions: 22” x 14” x 11” (56 x 36 x 28 cm)
Style: Duffel Bag
Weight: 3.4 lbs (1.5 kg)
Laptop: 15.6”
Materials: 420D Nylon Packcloth, 420D Ripstop Nylon, YKK Zippers
Origin: Manufactured in Vietnam
Overall Impression, Aesthetic
The Osprey Porter 46 is a sturdy duffel-style travel backpack. With organization designed for travel, and the carry comfort of a backpacking pack. The large duffel style main compartment makes it easy to pack, while the compression straps allow you to compress the bag to fit in an overhead.
Materials, Colors, and Size
Osprey uses a 420 denier nylon on the exterior of the Porter: a regular pack-cloth style on the main pack, and a ripstop-nylon on the bottom and sides.
It’s common to see a thinner fabric used by companies that make outdoor packs. And while the fabric is much thinner than many other travel bags, like Aer and Tom Bihn which use very thick ballistic nylon. This 420 denier fabric is still plenty durable for travel.
Zippers and Hardware
Like in all their packs Osprey uses solid, large YKK zippers, but they have started to skimp on the quality of the plastic hardware. The main zipper is the largest #10 YKK lockable zipper, with #8’s and #5’s used on the rest of the exterior and interior pockets.
However, the buckles and adjustors are all off-brand plastic hardware. Nothing here is particularly low quality: the hip belt is still thick and durable, but It’s not YKK brand. The rest of the hardware is noticeably lower quality than what they used to use on their packs from several years ago (see Osprey Farpoint 2015 version comparison).
Size, Dimensions, Colors
The Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack is pushing the limits of a carry-on sized backpack. Fully packed out this bag measures 22” x 14” x 11”. But with the help of the compression straps, you can compress an under packed bag.
With the bag fully-packed; the width is over 11”, well above the maximum allowed by most airlines. Now to compress the bag even more, simply unclip the compression straps, and attach them to the buckles on the side of the pack.
You will probably have to remove some gear if it’s overpacked. The compression straps work great, but they can only do so much if your bag is stuffed full. After removing some gear, you can easily get this down pretty tight below 9”, which will fit in the overhead in most airlines.
They don’t list the torso fit range for the Osprey Porter like they do for the Farpoint, but I think we can estimate it by comparing the two bags.
This is the Farpoint in the Small/Medium size, which is listed as fitting torso lengths from 15” to about 19”. You do have some play with adjusting the shoulder straps, but to be consistent, Ill measure from where the shoulder straps attach to the bag to the middle of the Hip belt strap.
The Distance on the Farpoint is about 15”, and the distance on the Porter 46 is almost 2” longer, at about 16.5 to 17” which makes it more of a medium sized pack. I would estimate this pack is designed for torso lengths about 17” and above. Learn more about the importance of Torso Length.
Security System
The Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack has some nice security features, including locking zippers, and a top panel that hides most of the zippers. Both the main compartment, and the laptop compartment have double locking YKK zippers, making it easy to lock, or clip them together.
One great feature on this pack is a fabric flap that folds over to protect the zippers on top of the pack. To make this work, simply slide the main and front pocket zippers over to the side. Now when you close the compression straps your zippers are now hidden from view. This makes it much more difficult for pick-pockets to access your pack.
External Components
The exterior of the Osprey Porter 46 is designed around a giant sturdy side-wall paneling frame. You could almost say that it’s a frame with a duffel bag built inside.
Compression Straps
The side panel supports some great compression straps that really help squish the bag down. The straps can attach in two locations, normal compression by attaching the clips together on top of the bag. And then for even more compression, attach the buckles over on the side. By doing this you can compress a fully packed bag at 11” width down small enough to fit it in an overhead. If it’s not packed too full of course.
Laptop Comartment
For all the lamenting about the laptop compartment on the Farpoint, the Porter has the opposite issue. The laptop compartment is super solid!
It’s located where a laptop compartment should be: on the back of the bag, behind the backpack straps. And It’s really, really solid. The sleeve easily holds my 15” Dell Inspiron, but it’s not quite big enough for a 17” laptop. And if you wanted to bring one, inside the sleeve is an additional padded mesh tablet sleeve.
This compartment is very well padded, on the back there’s a thick firm back paneling, plus a second softer foam layer. In addition to a much thicker soft foam panel on the back.
This compartment also offers great side and bottom protection with an awesome false bottom. The firm foam side panels protect your laptop from the sides, and there’s a sizable false bottom, which keeps your laptop about 3 inches off the bottom of the pack.
This thing is so sturdy, I have no worry dropping the bag with my laptop inside. I’ve tested this from a few feet up on a solid surface with no damage to my laptop.
Organizational Pockets
The top access slash pocket is hidden behind a fabric flap, making it difficult to detect. It’s unpadded and rather large, with the volume going into the main compartment. You can fit quite a bit of gear in here when the pack is empty, but you’re going to have less room when you pack is full.
The top organizational pocket is large enough for big bulky item like a jacket, or a toiletry kit if you wanted. But for the most part this is where you will store your small items and electronics. Inside are several thin divider sleeves: a larger padded mesh sleeve in the middle for a cell phone or international travel adapter (the CARD 4-Pro fits perfectly!). There’s an additional zippered pocket on top with a key leash clip inside.
Water Bottle Pocket
I want to bring attention to the fact that the Osprey Porter 46 does not have an external water bottle pocket. For some this is a big deal, but it doesn’t have to be. You have plenty of room in the main compartment. My recommendation is to use a collapsible water bottle like the Vapur Element. You will have to make room in the main compartment when it’s full. But when it’s empty it collapses down to almost nothing.
Carry Options
The Porter 46 has a few options for carry: stowable backpack straps, side hooks for attaching a shoulder strap, beefy side carry handles, and attachment points for a daypack. Note that the cross-body shoulder strap doesn’t come included with the Porter 46, and much be purchased separately.
Side Carry Handles
The Osprey Porter 46 has two of the most padded side-carry handles I’ve ever seen on a travel backpack. These things have a thin band of ripstop nylon fabric on top, with a full ½ inch-thick piece of firm foam padding below.
Shoulder Straps
The backpack shoulder straps attach to the bag, a few inches down from the top. They have load adjusters that clip into hidden buckles, as well as an adjustable sternum strap. They’re decently wide, with a slightly breathable back fabric, but the padding is little thin for a bag of this size.
Hip Belts
The padding on the hip belt is quite a bit thinner than the shoulder straps. They are not really sufficient to take a lot of weight off your shoulders. They’re also short, so the padding mostly rests on my back and doesn’t come around to the side of my hips where you want the padding to be.
Stowability
Both the shoulder straps and the hip belts can tuck inside a back panel. The straps tuck in from the top into a zippered pocket and the hip belts tuck in from slits in the bottom of the same pocket.
When you want to carry it as a backpack the shoulder straps clip into buckles on the back of the hip belts. Which means you must have the hip belts out for the shoulder straps to attach properly. You can clip them with the hip belts stowed, but I found the straps sit higher this way, and it’s not as comfortable.
Back Padding and Support
The Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack has a ton of back padding, but there is no very little contour to the bag and virtually no air ventilation against your back.
The Porter is very firm with support from multiple layers of padding. The back padding is the firmest and gives the bag a lot of its shape. Behind that is a thinner, much more flexible pad and then another very thick firmer foam bad between the laptop and the main compartment.
All this padding gives the bag a ton of structure. There’s no solid metal frame in here like some of the other Osprey Packs, but all this padding makes the bag firm and it’s difficult to fold the back of the pack.
Carry Comfort
As far as the carry comfort goes, this bag is only moderately comfortable. You get good support from the shoulder straps: they’re well curved with a lot of adjustability from the bottom straps, top load adjustors, and the sternum strap.
The shoulder straps start a few inches down from the top of the pack which means you’ll probably need to use the load lifters. This also raises the center of gravity which is good for weight distribution and will make the pack for comfortable on your back.
The pack is the perfect height for me. I’m 5’10”, about 200 lbs, with a 17.5” torso length. The hip belts land right on the side of my pelvic bone, right where you want them to be. However, this bag only comes in one size, so it might be too small and uncomfortable if you have a shorter torso length.
The padding on the hip belts as I mentioned earlier are a little lacking. They aren’t very padded, and the padding stops before it gets to the side of my waist. Which means they aren’t going to do a great job of taking weight off your shoulders.
Attaching a Daypack
The Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack has 4 small loops on the of the pack for attaching a daypack. It’s specifically designed to work with the Osprey Daylite but I would caution you against using it like this.
The Osprey Porter 46 is already a large pack with an extra-large width. Adding an additional daypack to the back of the pack will seriously throw off your weight distribution and make this pack uncomfortable to carry. A more prudent idea is to store a small packable daypack like the Matador FreeFly 16 inside the Porter. You get the same storage, but your pack is much lighter and comfortable.
Interior Components and Design
The Main compartment is supported by the sturdy padded side frame, accessible through a large U-zip opening on top of the pack. The main zipper folds down from the top giving you access into the main duffel-style compartment. Inside are two long zippered pockets that run the length of the interior.
I like the duffel opening; however, the zipper fails to do down the entire length of the bag. For me, the advantage of duffel style openings, is to make it easy to see all your gear, and simple to pack the bag. It’s kind of frustrating that the zipper only goes down ¾ of the way down the pack because it makes it difficult to access the bottom portion of this compartment
Packing Style
There’s enough compression on this pack, that you don’t need to use cubes, but I find that including at least a few of them help organize your gear.
I tested a few sizes and types of packing cubes with the Porter 46 and I found that these Eagle Creek medium compression cubes fit well. They’re about 14”x10”x3” when compressed, and two of them fill the bottom quite snugly.
the bag tapers up from the bottom, so it’s tricky to stack them on top of each other. You can put your other bulky gear like toiletry kit, jacket, or shoes, on top. Or I found these slightly smaller Medium Gonex Compression Cubes will nestle in here well.
Summary
Pros
The Osprey Porter 46 Travel Backpack is a good general travel pack with decent carry comfort. It has a large main compartment, and an awesome laptop compartment. The bag might be a little on the large size, but the awesome compression straps allow you to compress it down to fit in the overhead if it’s not overpacked.
Cons
I think they went overboard with the padding on the back and sides of the bag. This contributes most of the weight to the Porter without offering a lot of benefit. They could have slimmed down the padding, while still having a still pack with a well-protected laptop compartment.
They also skimped on the padding on the shoulder straps and hip belt and failed to include any air ventilation for your back. I like the easy access main compartment, but I don’t like that the main zipper doesn’t open all the way. It leaves a weird place in the bottom of the bag that’s hard to access when you’re packing it.
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