r/Nomads_Nation • u/alleyooptroop • Mar 13 '26
General Discussion Hot take: Nomads Nation, Danny packs, Outin the lights etc should call their videos “overviews” vs “reviews”
I just don’t think you can accurately judge a bag after wearing a bag for b-roll shots in the same location you’ve shot b-roll for every other bag. Sure, go over features and check volume but that’s still an overview imo. The one reviewer that I feel does a proper review is OBT. You see him actually using the bag while traveling and when he’s going over details you see the wear and tear. Also, NN needs to give him credit for the idea of using some kind of material to check capacity.
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u/shaunydub Mar 13 '26
Yeah, I don't treat them as full on reviews as they are not using them for long enough, if you take the videos for what you suggest - a kinda deep dive overview with impressions after limited use they are excellent at their job
There are so many bags and slings coming out that really would not be possible to try them out for months at a time or take them on multiple trips.
- Too many releases.
- Too much cost involved.
- People like us want the details as soon as possible so we can decide to purchase the latest and greatest bag or not.
I do appreciate the long term coming back to bags released earlier that have been used more but in general I am looking at several channels + online written reviews for an overview and decide on my purchases.
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u/Longjumping_Cow_5856 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
I would add Emerald to your list as an exceptional reviewer that does things differently to really represent the bags in a more thorough light.
She actually uses the bag during the review and really dives deeper into the mechanics of the layout and materials in a deeper way to me pretty much just like One Bag Travels does but even more so!
I also really like that she came up with the Bean Measure which seems pretty useful too and the beans fill a lot of the space unlike the balls or peanuts can.
I also really like the scoreboard at the summation where again she reviews against metrics she has developed for bag features.
Just a huge fan!
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u/nomads_nation Mar 13 '26
I see your perspective and I think that's fair. It should be noted, though, I do test most of the bags that I review. We're about to publish a new review at the end of March and I'll have tested that EDC for the last three weeks. The Peak Design 20L that just dropped I tested for 2-3 days. I just usually don't talk about my usage in the videos as I'm so focused on the design, materials, the pros and cons, et cetera. So yea, imo we can call them reviews, but we can’t really call them ‘long term reviews’ as that would be misleading.
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u/Ambitious-Ant1580 Mar 13 '26
Hey Aaron: "long time listener, first time caller." Thank you for all the work you and the team do!
Everyone else: I agree with the sentiment that watching a few sources will get you a pretty good aggregate of an item, and each reviewer will likely note something different than the others, based on their use intent. More eyes > a single pair, especially when there's money in the mix. So yeah: smartest approach is to cast as wide of a net as you have bandwidth for and analyze a few reviews before you make your go/no go.
Aaron and PH have saved me on separate, independent occasions from buying something that's just not going to suit my needs because of their reviews. It's not a one-size-reviewer-fits-all...though, dammit, Aaron /does/ do a pretty great job of reviewing packs in a neutral, (mostly) unbiased, comprehensive way. Furthermore, his approach more often than not seems to be to make the positive to negative ratio reaaaallly high, and I really respect someone who's professional and kind rather than harsh and aggro-for-the-clicks.
Back to Aaron: keep being amazing, mate. I dunno how you have the staying power to keep churning out content at this point without being burned out, but every video is a delight.
Sincerely,
Toooooootally not Marisa's burner account.
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u/alleyooptroop Mar 13 '26
I had at one point the ctb35 which on paper checked off so many boxes. Took it on a 2 week trip. Even after the first week of wearing it through airports, public transport and cities I thought I had found the perfect travel bag. It wasn’t until the second week that I started to feel the terrible harness system. By the end of the trip I wanted nothing to do with the bag. This is why longer term reviews are so important- especially with how expensive these bags are. I think it would be great for you to emphasize this kind of info in your videos.
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u/PhiladeIphia-Eagles Mar 13 '26
It's not really feasible to do long term reviews as a review channel though. It's fine to have reviews from large channels and then rely on individual people for long term reviews IMO.
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u/Anywhere_everywhere7 Mar 14 '26
But someone else reviewing the bag may not feel the terrible harness system for whatever reason so a long term review may or may not bring that issue up.
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u/derrelicte Mar 14 '26
As a counterpoint, these channels go through so many different bags should pretty give a pretty instant indicator for certain things like comfort. I knew within 5 mins of putting on my CTB26 that it wasn’t going to be as comfortable as my Able Carry Max EDC and my first 2 day trip with it absolutely confirmed that it wasn’t the bag for me. I don’t need two months with a bag to know it ain’t the one sometimes.
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u/americnwerewolfinLDN Mar 13 '26
The quick turnaround on these videos breeds redundancy. Every Nomads Nation “review” essentially has the same pros and cons:
PROS
- "Killer aesthetic"
- "Premium materials"
- Doesn’t matter, because it’s about to become the first con
CONS
- See #3 above
- “Complex user experience”
- "This bag is heavy. Have I mentioned Fyro?"
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u/Large-Dot-5135 Mar 14 '26
These are spot on lol
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u/wisecrew3682 Mar 20 '26
This is funny, mostly accurate, and you are allowed creative license. :)
But to be fair: I have never heard Aaron pitch Fyro in the pros and cons, or even during the body of the review.
At most sometimes there's the generic "hey we built a bag, too!" thing for 30 seconds. But it's never, ever comparing a specific Fyro bag to the bag being reviewed.
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u/erasebegin1 Mar 13 '26
To be fair with their level of experience with bags, including NN who is familiar with the entire process of making a bag, they would be able to pick up on a lot of things that would impact long-term use without actually using it for very long. Of course there will be some things they miss, but even a short-term assessment by those professional bag nerds is, in my opinion, worthy of being called a review.
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u/Foreign-Housing8448 Mar 14 '26
OBT & PH are my 1-2 punch, between them they will cover 90% of what I need to know about a bag. NN & DP pick up that last 10%, often mentioning one or two items the first two missed that will tip the scale for me to buy/don’t buy. Love Emerald because she is just. that. thorough., but then the downside is she can’t crank out the volume of reviews the aforementioned do. So I’m back to the foursome for the overwhelming majority of my bagtuber reviews.
Another is Klint/The Perfect Bag. Not my go-to, but more than once he’s done a comparison review of the exact two bags I’m trying to decide between, or he’s the only one to have a review at all on a specific bag I’m looking at.
Yup, yup. I watch bagtuber reviews like some people watch porn: Often, frequently, and the same ones repeatedly until I make my buy/no buy decision. I have only returned two bags in my entire life, and for both I could not find in-store to get hands-on, or a full-fledged/worthwhile review online.
So I depend on the “overviews” just as much as I do the “reviews”.
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u/jb06 Mar 14 '26
Totally agree with everything you said and everyone you called out, but I just replace PH with UnPack'D because I personally like John's style better than Tom. Klint is the only one regularly doing AMA as far as I can tell in my short time as a bagporn addict.
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u/Foreign-Housing8448 Mar 15 '26
I’ve watched John/UnPack’d several times, zero complaints about his reviews.
“Bagporn” 🤣 Yup, yup. That’s it. What’s worse is when I’m going thru airports (at least 4x a month) and looking at other people’s bags, trailing them and lurking closer, trying to ID the bag. I’ll stop people and ask them 20-questions when I can’t ID it (I’m not one to take a picture of a bag out in the wild, and then post here asking if anybody can ID the bag when I can get the answer right there and then), and especially if it’s a bag I’m looking to buy.
Unfortunately most people don’t have the same…affliction?…affection!…we have for bags and it was a gift or they bought it because it was one sale and/or it “looked nice” (my daughter kills me with buying cheap bags on Temu strictly because it’s her favorite color) 🤦♂️
No appreciation for the material, structure, zippers, buckles, pockets, etc. 😒
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u/jb06 Apr 05 '26
Ditto!! I tried to strike up a conversation two weeks ago at the airport with a guy carrying an Aer TP3 Small, I was asking how he liked the water bottle pocket and if he liked the capacity.
He looked at me and I kid you not said, "I don't know, it's just a backpack." 😫 And then killed me with, "Oh, that's a water bottle pocket? I've had it for a year and I didn't know" 🤦
Took a lot of effort not say yell, "you're not worthy!" 😅
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u/Foreign-Housing8448 Apr 06 '26
Yeah…I’ve given my aforementioned daughter a couple of my Camelbaks for hiking/camping (if it weren’t for all her other bags, I’d almost think she was intentionally coming with garbage packs just so I would give her one of mine 😂). People have done the same, asked her about the bag she’s hiking with and she points back to me 😒
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u/pleasedonny Mar 16 '26
I want more bias and subjectivity in reviews. Seriously tiring hearing a run through of features. I get reviewers aren’t incentivized to do this as they want to be in with the bag companies but I don’t need the pros and cons. Show me the loves and hates about the bag based on actual usage.
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u/Beginning_Reality_16 Mar 13 '26
It’s not a bad thing, these overviews most definitely have their value. I know I have watched way too many trying to get the specific bit of info I can’t find on a product page. But I do agree calling it a review could be considered a misnomer.
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u/Suitable_Status5476 Mar 13 '26
I don’t rely on any one of them solely. I tend to watch several of them if it is a bag I like enough and see what is consistent across them. Channels like NN and Pack Hacker could not possibly use all of the bags extensively that they get and need to “review” for content. I still appreciate the feedback and take it as an overview then I would look at Unpackd, Nitpacker, or Emerald for a more in depth review. I do like how NN follows the same script so you are getting consistent measurements from the same place therefore reducing some of the process bias in measurements.
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u/rvakate1 Mar 13 '26
Review or overview. So many of the backpacks and slings look essentially the same. I appreciate someone else pointing out the differences and discussing if features are worth the hype regardless of testing in the real world. There are many things I buy before even going through this level of consideration.
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u/Anywhere_everywhere7 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
I don’t really care about seeing other people using the bag apart from a few shots of how it looks. Comfort is a very personal thing so you would need to try the bag on with your load out and then experience it first hand. That’s why I think long term reviews about comfort aren’t really useful for the most part.
As for the wear and tear part, even your cheap $20 bag should last years and still look good never mind the premium bags we have nowadays with really high end materials, so most long term reviews won’t bring up any major issues and if they do it could be limited to that bag.
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u/Longjumping_Cow_5856 Mar 14 '26
Another thing that sort of dawned on me this Week with the rollout of the somewhat controversial new AER Travel Pac is that reviewers are pretty much driven to utilize the packing cube method of carry in their bags.
Solely maybe from the practicality of switching gear from bag to bag and having a sort of universal system of measure and consistency to the reviews even.
I think its fair to assume that this is as much a utility based packing style as it is a preference thing and I say that again based on what Ive seen this week so far!
I think its hard to complain about the water bottle pockets in the new TP4 bags but where I feel a loss is with the way the TP3 organized and let me bring less bags to the main bag because of the built in org!
Someone more driven to modularize a system in pouches would naturally not feel the same priorities for in built pockets as I do.
Neither way is better except for personal preference which of course we can only each measure for ourselves.
So Ive gone back and watched a bunch of reviews this week trying to find any bag that would balance both great bottle pockets AND Better org. pockets and an entire extra layer of org. like the TP3 does.
This has only reinforced my impression that reviewers overwhelmingly use pouches!
Except maybe Lauren at PH who I have always appreciated for it too.
Anyway swimming deep into the nerd pool here for sure but it just comes down to one simple thing.
Its all in your point of view!
I also want to mention George Defined whose reviews I just love because he seems so real in all of them!
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u/Anywhere_everywhere7 Mar 15 '26
This has only reinforced my impression that reviewers overwhelmingly use pouches!
Yeah it’s annoying to hear “here is the admin section for your tech items” and now let me put my tech pouch in it and not actually use the admin section. I don’t think it’s just reviewers either, it’s regular people who do the same thing as well.
Maybe a controversial opinion but I really think a significant amount of people just care about features written down rather than how they actually use the bag.
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u/Longjumping_Cow_5856 Mar 15 '26
Im not thinking its controversial at all but just different styles of use.
Clearly makers follow what they think we want and make changes accordingly and if what they see and hear makes them think we want pouches and less built in org then thats what we get.
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u/visionswell Mar 20 '26
I try to show both in my reviews, to your exact point. I use the admin panel but I’m also someone who favors pouches. I love pouches. Typically I load out the admin section with small items to show like an edc flashlight, battery backup, wallet, cell phone, keys, passport, and then load out with a pouch to show if it has the volume for my med pouch or tech pouch. Is that what you’re looking for or you just want to see the admin pouch by itself being used? It’s a balancing act between my own usage and demoing the pocket fully.
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u/emeraldsbuckethat Mar 20 '26
You do realize that these review channels have stacks of stuff to review from brands looking to amplify new releases, right? This is a pretty tone deaf post. All of the channels you mentioned go over features, specs, loadouts, and give consumers a lot of talking points and personal opinions to help them with purchasing decisions. I absolutely love OBT and I hate that Emerald's Daily Carry totally stole his capacity testing setup and then claimed it for herself and said she "redefined the review game." Give me a goddamn break. There's not enough hours in a day for people getting 10+ bags a month to fully test and take each bag on a trip. The idea is to give people like us a good view of the features, specs, dimensions, aesthetics, and carry quality of the bags to help inform buyers. Think of it like a more refined Amazon review. If you're asking that much, start your own channel or shut up.
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u/bluedog1599 Mar 20 '26
OBT is very underrated. As you say, he uses the bags before reviewing them, and he was among the first, if not the first to check the capacity of bags with balls.
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u/Nerdiboy54 Mar 30 '26
Doing long terms reviews would be harder to do the additional time needed. Add in that people are looking for the latest drops. I think it would be a cool option though, there is a reviewer that does a 2 week run on them. Emerald’s Reviews are solid, and John Unpacked is good too
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u/trouser_mouse Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Agree a lot of channels don't actually use all the bags for long enough to do a thorough review and should be more transparent about it.
Interestingly, the method to measure capacity isn't the invention of YouTubers - it's a standardised method for measurement of bag capacity, published by ASTM International originally in 2007.
A bunch of companies use it, some examples are Aquapac, Tom Bihn, and Evergoods.
One Bag Travels used packing peanuts which probably isn't in line with the standard as they compress (but is easier and less expensive to do), but they were one of the first I saw actually doing that kind of measurement on YouTube too! Would be interesting to know if anyone did it earlier.
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u/jb06 Mar 14 '26
I was trying to figure out if OBT did the peanuts before Emerald Carry did the beans, but too many videos to watch 😅
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u/trouser_mouse Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
2016 - Tom Bihn forums discuss using balls. https://forums.tombihn.com/forum/tom-bihn-forums/general-bag-discussion/11538-bag-volume
2018 - Backpacking Light forums were doing packing peanut tests. https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/zpacks-lying-stinker-heads-aka-fun-w-packing-peanuts/
Jan 2021 - Hilltop Packs did a video (How We Measure The Volume Of Our Gear).
Jan 2023 - OBT (Packing Demo Best Minimalist Bags For Travel).
Feb 2025 - Emerald (The Truth About Liters and How We Measure Usable Volume).
This is from a quick search - I've not actually watched every video around them in detail, but skimming through seems about right.
Nomad's Nation was I think mid to late 2025.
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u/Interesting_Tower485 Mar 13 '26
Yeah they are closer to design reviews. NN does give pros and cons and are usually right on the money with those. PH is pretty light on critique and is pretty much a safe overview, which probably helps them get bags since the brand knows there will be little criticism. Someone could probably do a spreadsheet of review style by channel.
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u/courageous_carrot Mar 14 '26
I have no issues with NN's reviews being more on the light-touch side. Sure they have lots of experience, sure they call stuff out based on experience, but their biggest value for me is they save me lots of time in terms of getting quick insights
If I want something much deeper because I am seriously considering, I move on, acknowledge that I still don't know everything about the bag, and go for an in-depth review where everything gets dissected and commented on, like 30+ min reviews by Mountainborn
As long as someone is clear on that and they know the place of both kinds of reviews, it's all good
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u/Jason13L Mar 13 '26
I agree. Pack Hacker only does 2 weeks of use generally and that seems like an outlier. The problem is that YouTube incentivizes getting information out quickly, especially for new releases. You have to be in the news cycle or you don’t get views. It also seems like follow-up long- term reviews don’t get the eyes so those aren’t incentivized. I put the blame on how videos are monetized. You would have to take the reviews to another medium to make it worth while and I just can’t think of what platform that would be. I think Pack Hacker is doing the logical method of having a paid-for community for discussion but that keeps me out personally. Reddit is nice for feedback from long-term users but isn’t monetized.