Mopak Sleek Backpack Review
Sleek But a bit of a nuisance
Purchase Price: $129.99
It better be sleek
When you make a backpack and name it “Sleek”, the bag better be clean to the point where it's nearly irresistible. Mopak’s Sleek Backpack is a top loading carrier that can also open up fully flat. On the surface, it kind of reminded me of the Bellroy Melbourne Backpack that I daily carried for two years straight. While Mopak’s compact offering looks good from a distance, the carrier does have its issues that keep it from potentially being a valuable daily companion.
For a 12L capacity, the Sleek bag surprisingly feels larger and holds more than the size leads on. Not only does it open up flat, this Mopak provides an abundance of little pockets that can house bottles and other cylinder-shaped items. I normally carry a 25 fl oz bottle with me and the Mopak slots it in effortlessly most of the time. There’s essentially two outside pockets and two inner pockets of this nature that I found invaluable to have when hauling everyday items.
Flow
When the bag is laid out open, a zippered mesh pocket occupies both sides of the connecting flaps. One’s larger than the other, but this is likely where earbuds and keys will inevitably find their lodging spots. There are two more larger pouches for a laptop up to around 15-inches and a tablet around 11-inches to store away. The company throws in a latching clasp that slides through a little passthrough holder before connecting to the button. It’s unnecessary and quite honestly gets in the way when I am loading a laptop into the pouch. I can comfortably house a 13-inch Macbook Pro with a sleeve in the laptop pouch and it isn’t going anywhere unlatched.
The last compartment to cover is a quick access front pocket on the outside of the bag. It’s the only zippered compartment located outside on the Sleek and it occupies nearly half of the front area. The pouch doesn’t stretch out too far, but it is ideal for small notebooks and knickknacks that someone might pull out frequently throughout a day like tissue paper or hand sanitizers.
Build Quality
From a physical design standpoint, I’d say the backpack can carry a decent amount of daily gear. I was able to load in a few small Amazon packages from the office to carry home using this bag. Made out of a recycled polyester material that feels neither cheap nor expensive, it does repel drops of water landing on the fabric. The material is coarse and I didn’t particularly like the stitching across the plane, but it's an eco-friendly build that didn’t discolor or scratch up over the last few months I’ve worn it.
All of the zippers operated cleanly without hiccups. I liked how spaced apart the material is from the actual zippered zones. Too many times on other types of bag designs do I get the zipper caught on the fabric that overlaps where the zipper hangs. I never ran into that with the Mopak. The one connection I highly disliked was the buckle. Mopak relies on a FIDLOCK magnetic buckle that latches the overhead flap with the main body.
Here’s my main problem with this— if you store anything in the pouch on the inside of the flap, it could interfere with the compatibility of the buckle. I kid you not— a mere earbud case was enough to bloat the flap too far out to reliably close the bag. This is an oversight on the design as this issue effectively rendered one of the zipped pouches unusable for anything other than small pieces of paper or pens.
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A nuisance to clip
Even without housing anything inside that pouch, the buckle is still a nuisance to clip in. As a wearer, I’m normally opening and closing the bag on instinct. When the flap is closing over the receiving portion of the buckle, I’m going in blind. I struggled so much to hit the hole that I actually left scratch marks on the plastic receiver over time. I felt like I was fishing for a hole-in-one every single time I attempted to close the bag.
I’m not even certain that the FIDLOCK magnetic buckle is even magnetic at all as I haven’t felt any sort of magnetic force that would pull the flap towards the receiving end while it was near it. While I guess it is somewhat more secure when it actually is latched in properly than an actual working magnetic connection without a latch like the Bellroy Melbourne, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference because if someone did want to pickpocket me while wearing the Sleek around the city, they’d have no problem pulling the flap up and reaching down into the bag. In fact, the zipper along the side that opens up the bag fully is also easily accessible and not concealed by the flap at all either. I’d say the backpack is viable for carrying into an office via car commute, but not so much via travel on foot. I wouldn’t feel that my belongings were safely guarded behind me if I was walking through the streets of a busy city wearing this Mopak bag.
Different Colors
In addition to the brown color we have, mopak sells the bag in black, Henna, and also blue
The Sleek is pretty compact for a 12L bag
So is it sleek?
I will say that the Sleek backpack at least felt comfy to wear for long periods of time. The back panel is aptly padded with an arching shape that compliments the spine. The straps also have a thin line of padding that doesn’t add weight stress on my shoulders while wearing the backpack in either high or lowered positions. The straps adjust seamlessly and I liked the metal slide adjusters and the contrast it has with the brown color of my backpack. This bag also does fit my frame rather well. It doesn’t look small on my back even though it only houses a 12L capacity.
At the retail price of $129, I find the Mopak to be reasonably priced with competitors that have similar offerings. I don’t think it’s a high-end bag in terms of material and design, but it does handle compartmentalizing and wearing comfort well. I don’t love the Mopak Sleek backpack. In fact, I loathe it during some random Thursday afternoon as I’m packing up my belongings and getting ready to go home. However, I see it hanging from a distance and I can’t help but see how sleek the bag looks and eventually feel drawn to using it another day.
Alex
With nearly a decade under his belt running his video production team, and countless hours traveling the country to report on pop culture events during his tenure as a contributor for AXS Examiner, Alex has relied on a lot of gadgets over the years. That still hasn’t satiated his need to get his hands on the newest and greatest the world has to offer!