Boundary Supply Errant Pack Review: Peak Design Has Competition!

POSITIVES

✓ Sleek Design

Looks clean and modern

✓ Compartmentalized

Lots of add-on areas for organization

✓ Terrific Quality

No expenses spared in material

NEGATIVES

✘ A bit heavy on the shoulders

Larger than 22L would feel

✘ Pulling Stuff Out

Have to think about where you should open the bag

✘ Availability

Hard to find one in stock

Purchase Price: $219

Looking For Something Different

Over the last few years, I’ve been using Peak Design’s Everyday Messenger bag as my daily driver for work. It’s such a well built and premium feeling bag that it’s been hard to find something that matches that level of excellence. I started wanting to switch back to a backpack form factor instead of a messenger bag and began my search for a suitable companion earlier this year. Conducting an extensive search on the internet, I settled on a bag that has a bit of a hipster following behind it. After a trip to New York, as well as months with it on my back commuting from home to work, I’ve gotten to understand the ins and the outs of this neat bag. This is the Boundary Supply Errant Pack and here’s my full review nonetheless.  

The Errant Pack was originally a crowd funded project that helped propel the company into social media darlings. Whether it be through Instagram or Facebook Ads, I was drawn to the minimalistic approach that the company’s design philosophy revolves around. While I would say that Peak Design is still the king of minimalistic urban backpack design, Boundary Supply has done a good job of capturing that essence as well. I bought the blue Errant Pack for $219 earlier this year and since then I’ve found myself tethering back and forth between a mix of positives and negatives that keep me from making a clear decision whether I like or dislike this backpack.

What’s on the inside

Let’s try to characterize what this backpack is; at a capacity of 22L, it’s on the bigger side of urban backpacks. While this technically can be used for anything from city commutes, photography, and even for camping, I’ve personally found the functionality of the bag to resemble that of a bag I took backpacking through Europe when I was younger. You can open the bag to get to the contents inside through two ways. The first is through an overhead zipper that is guarded by two magnetic snap pieces. You have to somewhat guide the nubs of the magnets into their groves by leading it under and up. You technically don’t need to zipper up this area as the magnetic latch can act as a closing method as well. If you open the bag this way, you’ll have to dig your arm into the bag like a rucksack. Actually, the Errant Pack kind of resembles a rucksack more than a backpack in many ways.     

There are lashes and latches throughout the exterior of the bag for compartment attachments and clips. While you don’t need to utilize the inserts and the cubes the company sells as additional accessories, the bag was clearly designed to capitalize on these things as an organization tool. I don’t have any of that, but I do keep my tech cables and SSD’s in a bag that fits perfectly into where the official insert would have gone. 

Going back to the second way to operate the bag, a zipper path along the body of the bag opens up the entire pack like how camera bags operate. In what Boundary Supply classifies as the Workspace, a padded laptop and tablet sleeve is held together by a magnetic latch. The laptop slot is spacious as it can hold up to a 15” device. I house my 13 inch Macbook Pro there comfortably. Any reasonably sized tablet will fit in the second slot as my 11 inch iPad Pro also slid in there without any resistance. I actually like sliding in documents and folders to keep from crumbling while I commute from work in these slots as well. Below those two slots are two stretch mesh pockets that are pretty gracious in space. You could fit a graphing calculator or even a Nintendo Switch in there if you want. On the opposite end, there are a few elastic pouches of varying sizes. The largest one is zippered and I found it to be the right size for loose headphones. The side pouches can hold camera lenses if you decide not to acquire the camera component add-on. I also found this area to be a suitable spot for computer bricks that have an elongated proprietary power brick like the one from the Razer Book 13. 

While I do like the compartmentalized layout for organization purposes, it does limit the depth of storage for flexibility. For example, when I was using this as a daypack in New York City, I had headphones in the elastic pouch. Everything else also had their respective areas filled with their expected types of tenants. When opening it up overhead style, it was actually fairly difficult to pull out what I was looking for as the pouch acts as a cover that tucks over the submerged content. In this method of packing, it was then easier to open it via the body zipper to obtain what I wanted. What I’m trying to imply is that unlike some packs where you can just toss things in and you can grab things anyway it opens up, the Errant does have a specific method of use depending on how you pack it. I personally didn’t find it equally versatile in both methods of opening the bag and that was a little tricky to get used to while in the city. I found myself having to think about which way to open it in order to grab what I was thinking about taking out and where it was stored instead of just opening it whichever way and just taking it out. 

The Outside Counts

On the flip side, the Errant does have plenty of thoughtful exterior functions. There’s a generous sized water bottle area that can hold a photography tripod instead. There’s a bottom zipper slot that is meant to carry a pair of shoes. I found it a bit difficult to actually put a pair of shoes in there with a fully occupied bag, but it could be done with a bit of force. It’s really meant for tennis shoes and not dress shoes. I ended up using that slot to store folded reusable shopping bags while moving throughout the city. Boundary Supply placed plenty of hidden zippered areas to house commonly used items like keys and cards. The Errant can also slide through a luggage handle while traveling via a luggage passthrough clip. While the backpack isn’t the most comfortable pack to wear for long periods of time, the startup company has done enough here to try to make the bag accommodating to our human body. Padded handles, straps, and harness area, do enough to alleviate stress on the body while moving. The longest I had the Errant Pack on my body at one consecutive session was about 3 hours, half filled. I felt fatigue at times which is normal after wearing a bag for so long. However, I would claim that it is a little bit bulkier when carrying tech oriented things for work over some of the other bags I own in a similar liter category. 

Should You Buy?

As a consumer, I can easily see that Boundary Supply didn’t cheap out on any aspect of the bag when it comes to material choice and assembly. I am extremely impressed with this level of detail on what is a relatively young company.

I will easily classify the Errant Pack as a high quality product. It isn’t even a question. The stitching and assembly is noticeably elite in material and feel. As a consumer, I can easily see that Boundary Supply didn’t cheap out on any aspect of the bag when it comes to material choice and assembly. I am extremely impressed with this level of detail on what is a relatively young company. There’s a level of quality here that even exceeds some legacy bag makers at higher prices. $219 is about right for a backpack of this quality. I love the urban design, and certain parts of the Errant Pack’s modular layout. However, there’s just certain daily usage aspects of the bag that don't mesh with my wants and needs. I wouldn’t necessarily blame the bag and its design as the problem, more-so that I personally found the bag to be more suited for long term storage travel than constant commuter operation. I may also have felt this way because I don’t have any of the compartment inserts that are clearly meant to be used with this design. This kind of further illustrates my point about this bag being designed to hold things for long travel without pulling things out of the main pack constantly. That just didn’t mesh well with my daily flow wearing this to commute and for videography work where I’d constantly be swapping things in and out of the bag. Still, I highly recommend at least taking a look at the Errant Pack and placing it on a short list of consideration as there is clearly a quality standard behind Boundary Supply and their products.      

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