Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We have an upcoming trip to Indonesia to visit my wife's relatives, and for the first week or so we plan to do a little island-hopping. I wanted a couple bags that could pass as carry-ons, but with backpack features. We don't intend on doing a whole lot of walking with packs--just getting on and off planes, trains, boats, and looking for places to put up for the night. I am a sturdy 5'6" and my wife is a petite 5'3". Based on the glowing reviews, the Osprey Porter 46, Farpoint 40 (size S-M), and Farpoint 55 (also size S-M, with a length of 24") all seemed like possibilities. My first inclination was toward the Porter 46, but I couldn't make up my mind without a side-by-side comparison. Noting that I had the possibility of free returns on two out of these these, I ordered them all. When I had them all together, I filled some packing cubes, got my laptop (which was going to have to come on the trip), and set about trying them all. The basics: The Porter 46 is like a semi-firm duffle bag, with hide-away shoulder straps and a passable hip belt. The Farpoints have an internal, light-weight frame, shoulder straps, and a more supportive hip belt hidden by a zippered flap. The Farpoint 55 has a daypack that zippers onto the main pack, but can also attach in front of your body, to the shoulder straps. The Porter 46 won out for us, pretty much hands down. It had these advantages: + Semi-rigid side walls. The firm sides make it much easier to pack, and give it a feeling of greater depth--like packing a little travel suitcase. + More rip-resistant in appearance. The bag looks like it could take a pretty good beating, whereas the Farpoints (particularly the Farpoint 55) are made of much lighter material. + Organizing pockets. The Porter 46 has a zippered pocket along each sidewall, and a number of organizing pockets (for laptop, e-reader, pens, documents) in the front compartment. If you are a traveling professional, this is a definite attraction. And it was just obvious that the better accessibility here was going to make security and immigration that much easier. + The hide-away shoulder strap system is pretty awesome; I did not like the whole zippered-compartment-thing of the Farpoints. + You hardly have any loose straps. Not so much an issue with the Farpoint 40, but the Farpoint 55 seemed to have them flopping all around. If we were going to be doing more hiking about, then I would reconsider the Farpoints. The hip suspension is definitely better, they are of lighter construction, and the packs squeeze everything closer to your center of gravity. The zip-away day pack on the Farpoint 55 is certainly an intriguing feature. If you know how to pack light and tight, and are going to be on your feet a lot, these would probably be better choices. Some have commented that the Porter 46 should not have been designed with the laptop sleeve in the front, where it throws more weight off your center of gravity. Perhaps. On the other hand, it does make your laptop more readily accessible for security checks, and it does function as a nice flat surface that the compression straps can leverage. The Farpoint 40 at first struck me as the perfect fit for wifey, especially with the better suspension. But then I remembered how she much she usually packs, and I knew there was no way she was going to be satisfied with the 40. The Porter 46 at least gives her the option of packing more, if she really feels it's worth carrying. Our trip is in November, and I'm usually pretty good about updating my reviews if something interesting comes up. If I don't, assume that we both found our bags perfect for this trip! UPDATE 2015-01-27: A great trip, and both our Porter 46 bags proved to be the perfect choice! They are easily converted to/from backpack mode, hold lots of stuff, are strong and well-made, and are aesthetically pleasing, too (although when loaded, they don't stand up when left on their side--a consequence of the compression design). My comment about the laptop sleeve stands: it's great for a small laptop or tablet, but leave anything larger at home. We paired up the Osprey Day Lite packs with these, which we also found to be a great choice for our little excursions. But while they do attach to the larger Porter 46, I found the attachment process awkward. Plus, it's not really an optimal solution unless you are carrying relatively little in the Porter; otherwise, the bags just protrude too much, and straps hang down and flop all over. But they have a nice handle on the top (formed by the shoulder straps), which makes them very easy to tote around when you've got the Porter on your back.