National Geographic NG A5250 Small RuckSack - Brown

I love this bag. Only thing is I paid 160.00$ for it and one week later it was 80.00$Felt a little ripped off but I still love it

I am a high school student who wants to bring her mirrorless hybrid camera (Sony Nex-5n) as well as her school materials every day in a compact and good-looking backpack. While surfing the Amazon, this Nat Geo's Africa rucksack series caught my eye. Then, I hesitated between this product and the bigger (medium rucksack) model. I am pretty sure most of you who are viewing this page have gone through or are going through the same experience. Well, to tell you the truth, I chose to buy the smaller model since I could not afford the bigger one for now. Since I could only rely on the preview shoots made by Nat Geo - with the fully-grown male model wearing it - I was not expecting it to be big enough - I just hoped it would worth its price, at least. Even though I still had the doubt about the smaller model's capacity, I just decided to give it a try.Then today, I received my bag. To my surprise, this bag was MUCH BIGGER than I expected. I was even suspicious if it was accidentally switched with the medium sized one - no, it was delivered correctly. It was somehow even bulky when I put it on my back. Now some of you might not agree to this, since people's body sizes are all different. I am a slightly chubby Asian girl of 5' 4". My shape, in general, is relatively smaller when compared to other tall, big, and sturdy-looking types of people. It could be helpful if you keep this in mind.Of course, the capacity of the bag is big enough that I can put in everything I want to. Folders, a laptop, a fat pencil case, a wallet, a water bottle, a jacket, my phone, an umbrella, my camera, etc. I highly recommend it.P.s.: In the mini manual that came along with the bag, it says that the bag has two side pockets for carrying tripods or water bottles, but I could not find any of them. Has anyone succeeded? Please teach me where.

So the bag was shipped quickly, and I was pretty happy with that. This bag has a lot of cool features like a built-in laptop compartment, and it can convert into a messenger bag if you wish to carry it that way. You can tell that it's well-made, but there are a couple annoying features about this bag as well, unfortunately.For example, when in use as a backpack, the shoulder strap shift and many times I find myself stopping to adjust them every time I put it on. And for some reason (I have no idea why it is designed this way), but the zippers only open 2/3 the amount a regular backpack would. Imagine if a regular Jansport backpack has the zipper shape of an upside-down "U", the zippers on this one open up like an upside-down "L." It's a hassle especially when you have a lot of things inside the bag, so it's frustrating that it cannot open all the way.The front of the bag has two secret compartments tucked into the oragami-like design on the front. I personally haven't found them extremely useful, but others might. Overall though, I must say that my biggest disappointment in this bag is that while it seems around the same size as other school backpacks, it holds much less--and is not at all expandable. I reverted to using my old trustworthy Jansport for school instead, but I kept this bag around so I can use it for the occasional photography trip (the small compartments in this bag are useful for that).Overall, three stars for the nice look of the bag and the revolutionary design--but it fell short to what one would expect from such a bag.

It's a nice, practical laptop bag/backpack, but it is NOT A CAMERA BAG. Sure, you could put a camera in it, but it doesn't have the padding for it, as is. Unless I am missing something, it also can't hold a tripod or water bottle as the description claims ("Two side pouches can be used to support a tripod or water bottle."). Since I purchased it intending to use it as an inconspicuous camera bag, with simple modifications (adding of a few external loops to hold a monopod, a few pads from another camera bag inside to provide some divisions) I am still reasonably happy with it. It is quite thin though, so even with modification, it is unsuitable for large lenses or camera bodies. This is really a laptop bag (you can easily remove the laptop division though).Stiff zippers (that open half-way) and thick material make the bag feel safe for travel. It's not "slash-proof", but it's more secure than the average bag. The straps need padding added to be comfortable for backpacking. The water-proof cover is also a nice addition.

This backpack looks nice but it feels cheap. The interior is lined with thin cheap polyester and foam separators. The backpack looks like its moldable and made of soft fabric but its actually stiff and the material is rigid. I also thought the versatility of being able change the bag from a backpack to a messenger bag would be nice but instead it became a cumbersome experience with the straps sliding unevenly when wearing it in backpack mode and taking too long to shift to messenger bag to be useful. There is also a lot of compartments that are just not useful. They're too small to hold anything useful and there's a bunch of them in odd locations and the zippers don't open completely around the backpack making getting stuff in and out annoying. The only reason I rate this 3 stars is because functionally it works and its not the worst backpack in the world. It just a disappointment when it comes to quality and functionality.