DSPTCH Bookpack — comprehensive review
DSPTCH (pronounced “dispatch”) is a relatively young design and manufacturing company who caters to the “modern professional” with functional and durable products. DSPTCH’s first product was a minimalist camera strap, but they have expanded in just 8 years to lines of backpacks and shoulder bags, various pouches for accessories and tech cases, and a wide line of camera straps. One of their design principles is “Durability is first. Functionality is a close second.” All of their products are made in the US, which can mean prices run on the higher side, but they have also demonstrated great quality and back that up with a lifetime guarantee on all their products.
Through the grapevine, we were asked to review a DSPTCH backpack and we thought, “Why not?” They’re a brand that’s known for quality products and with their modern design focus, most of their bags have a clean but not overly minimal look to them, which is right in line with our tastes. The only question was which backpack?
Browsing through their website, you’ll see bags ranging from small 8L waist packs to 30L travel backpacks. In the end I chose the Bookpack, an 18L “reinterpretation of a classic book bag with updated functionality.”
The Bookpack is a bit different from most of my other backpacks in that it has a smaller capacity and a leaner design. But that’s the reason I chose it — I didn’t want to have yet another ~30L work/gym/light travel backpack. In general, the backpack lives up to their principle of “Durability is first.” The construction is excellent. However, the functionality didn’t seem to be as close behind durability as I thought it’d be. Based on using this backpack and by looking at the design of some of their other backpacks, I get the sense that DSPTCH prioritized aesthetic design over functional utility design. That’s not necessarily a wrong decision. Some people prefer it that way. Ideally, they would do both.
Before we get into the key features, let’s start with the overall design of the bag’s shape:
Design & Shape
As you can see, the backpack has a fairly rectangular shape. Not unusual. But the bottom of the backpack is very tapered. This design means that the bag will definitely not be able to stand on its own and is a trait that DSPTCH implements in some of their other bags as well, though not all. This might not bother everyone, but for me it’s a bit of a nuisance. It also has some other implications for storage in the main compartment, which I’ll get into below.
The shoulder straps are more or less straight. There is a very slight contour to them, but not enough to make them noticeably more comfortable.
Key Features
- The main compartment has both a laptop sleeve and a tablet sleeve. While the sleeve is large enough to hold a 15" laptop without any issues, the whole compartment itself is on the smaller side. One difference I see in their design is that the laptop sleeve has 3 dimensions to it. Rather than just being completely flat like some other backpacks, the Bookpack’s laptop sleeve has about an inch of width. While this makes sense from the perspective of ensuring a good fit for your laptop, it does take away a bit of volume in the already slim main compartment, particularly since the bottom of the bag is so tapered. Additionally, with the angle of the bag’s bottom, if you put multiple books into the main compartment, they won’t all sit flush at the bottom. Each book will be slightly higher than the preceding one as you move further away from the back panel.
- At the top of the inside of the main compartment is a zippered mesh pocket. It runs all the way across the backpack and is just over 5" in height. It’s a great place to store smaller items like cables or that TI-89 calculator that your calculus teacher made you buy but you never used again after high school.
- The bottom of half of the front exterior face is the quick-access pocket. This pocket is definitely my favorite feature of the backpack (though to be fair there aren’t a whole lot of features as this is a pretty basic backpack). This compartment has it’s own volume, which is great on the designer’s part. A lot of backpacks feature exterior pockets that don’t have their own volume and when you put things in it, they end up taking volume away from the main compartment. With this backpack, the main compartment can’t afford to lose any more volume. Inside are a couple elastic pockets to help organize your smaller items (e.g., phone, pens, sunglasses, etc). The compartment has a top flap with Fidlock magnets to close and secure it. These magnets are AMAZING. They’re incredibly smooth and will lock in place with a gentle touch. To open them, you just pull the flap down a bit and then pull the flap outward. However, when the front pocket is very full, the magnets on the flap don’t align perfectly with the those on the pocket. Instead of that gentle touch to close the magnets, you’ll just need to tug the flap downward a bit to align the magnetic components. Most of DSPTCH’s other backpacks do not feature any Fidlock magnets, except the Utility Ruck backpack whose top flap has a magnetic fastener. Many of their shoulder bags and messenger bags, however, do use the same Fidlock magnetic flap. One additional note on the front pocket is that items that stick upwards too much (e.g., certain types of pens) may prevent the flap from closing securely. My Galaxy S8 fit in just perfectly vertically.
Add-on Features
- Like most backpacks, the Bookpack’s shoulder straps are adjustable. But it also has an adjustable sternum strap and load-lifting / stabilizer straps as well. To be honest, I don’t think an 18L backpack really needs load-lifting straps. That’s something I’d expect from a 60L backcountry trekking pack or travel pack. So throughout my several weeks of usage, I never once felt the need to adjust the load-lifting straps. I was carrying a laptop, a binder, a textbook, and various small items. The sternum strap might not be totally necessary either, but I suppose if you’ve got laptops and books, the backpack can get a bit heavy so it’s a not add-on. They’re also removable if you really want to get them out of the way.
- The top grab handle is nylon webbing wrapped in a very thick and removable padding. The removable aspect becomes more useful for DSPTCH’s backpacks that are meant for travel (you can wrap the grab handle around the handle of rolling luggage to keep them secured to each other).
- On the sides of the Bookpack are two D-rings that can be used for additional attachments.
- Two straps on the bottom of the bag can also be used to strap additional items to the bag or to further compress the bottom of the bag to the point where you’re pretty much just wearing a laptop sleeve on your back.
- The bottom anchor points of both shoulder straps can be detached via plastic buckles, allowing you to hang the backpack up on your closet’s crossbar. The straps are not stowable, however.
Technical Specs & Construction
The Bookpack itself measures 11" x 17" x 4" providing roughly 18L of volume and comes in at 1 lb 13 ozs. The adjustable buckles and rings are all Duraflex plastic, so while they’re not the strongest hardware you can find in backpacks, they provide a balance of being durable and light weight.
The fabric throughout most of the bag is a relatively thin nylon. Though their website doesn’t list the density of the fabric, I’d guess that it’s somewhere around the 300D range (please let me know if you have more information though!). The back panel and the bottom of the bag, however, are reinforced with ample padding. Oddly, the top flap that holds the Fidlock magnets is significantly thicker and Carryology cites that piece as 1680D ballistic nylon. That’s beyond military grade. I’m not sure why there is such a huge difference in the materials of that flap and the rest of the bag, but my guess would be because you’ll constantly be pulling on the flap to open the front pocket, so it needs to be beefed up. Still, 1680D seems a little superfluous. Considering this is a smaller backpack (at least by my standards), it’s not a major problem that the fabric is a bit thinner as I’m never going to be carrying 30 lbs of gear in this backpack. This keeps the bag’s weight down as well.
There are only two zippers on the backpack (the main compartment and the inner mesh pocket). The exterior ones have zipper pulls and all are YKK. The exterior zip look like it’s about size 8 YKK.
All the the stitching looked well-done with reinforced stitching at the anchor points for all the straps and handles. I didn’t notice any loose threads throughout my use, though it was only for a few weeks.
In-field Usage
Overall, I found that the backpack wasn’t the most comfortable for me. There is some padding along the back panel and along the shoulder straps, but it’s a very thin layer and is very malleable, so it doesn’t provide a much support. It feels like it could be open-cell foam. All of the foam is covered with air mesh, but with how soft the foam is, there isn’t much airflow.
Since the shoulder straps are more straight than contoured, they weren’t the most comfortable for someone my size either. Someone with a smaller frame would likely find the Bookpack more comfortable than I did. For reference, it looks like all of DSPTCH’s backpacks share the same shoulder strap design.
As previously mentioned, the tapered bottom drew my ire since the bag isn’t able to stand on its own. But another complaint with the general design is that the front pocket’s flap is attached in such a way that when it’s closed it folds downward, it creates a crevice across the front of the bag. Dirt, crumbs, and other small particulate get easily stuck in there, which can be annoying.
One last noteworthy issue is that because the backpack is quite slim (only 4 inches in depth), if you put more than 4 inches worth of items inside, it starts to push the front face of the bag, making it curve outward. Since the mesh pocket inside the main compartment runs horizontally across the backpack, overloading the bag applies an outward pressure on any long items in that mesh pocket. I found this out when I had a pencil in the pocket snap in half. I initially thought it may have been having too much weight in the bag causing the top portion to fold due to where the top grab handle was anchored to the bag, but after recreating the scenario a few times to see what was causing the issue and breaking more pencils I confirmed that it was not solely a weight issue, but also due to volume and shape. So if you’re frequently going to be carrying much more than 4 inches of cargo, you may want to go with a bag that isn’t so slim. A laptop, textbook, small notebook and a book is already 4 inches.
Wrap-up
It sounds like I complained a lot about the Bookpack, but it’s honestly a decent bag IF you’re not carrying a lot. Unfortunately, I often carry more than this bag’s capacity. Though there are a couple design issues I would change, it’s well-constructed (as true to their design principle) and has a clean and fashionable look. In the end, I probably should have chosen one of their larger backpacks to better suit my needs. But if anything, this at least confirms to me that DSPTCH focuses more on durability and aesthetics over practicality and comfort.
- Utility: 2 of 5 — It’s a very basic backpack but has a couple design flaws that I took issue with
- Organization: 3 of 5 — Sleeves for your tech and a couple additional small pockets gets the job done
- Construction: 3 of 5 — Seems to be their focus, though there is still a bit of room to improve for this bag, particularly in the fabric choice.
- Aesthetics: 4 of 5 — Modern and minimal give it a clean look. It is very boxy though.
- Comfort: 3 of 5 — The padding is too lacking to provide a lot of support. It might not be vital for a smaller bag like this, but if you’re carrying books (it is called the Bookpack after all), more supportive padding would be nice.
- Life-Integration: 4 of 5 — A very basic backpack that’s easy to use. The Fidlock magnets are very easy to get used to as well.
- X-Factor: 2 of 5 — Nothing super flashy that gets everyone on the edge of their seats. Just a modern interpretation of a classic backpack.
