Pros & Cons
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- Rugged construction.
- Optional waterproof hood.
- Lots of dedicated pockets.
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- Built-in power strip is less practical than you'd expect.
- Battery pocket is too deep.
You have three gadgets, but there's only one outlet. It's a common problem, and one the MOS Pack ($149.95) aims to solve. The MOS Pack was a big hit on Kickstarter, thanks to its good-looking design and its idea of centrally charging all of your gadgets while they sit in your backpack. But let me make it clear: This is not a power bag, which typically has a battery inside the bag to charge your gadgets on the go. Rather, the MOS Pack has a power strip in the bottom so that you can charge your gadgets from the wall without taking them out of the bag. It's a good idea that doesn't translate as well as you'd expect to real-world application.
Design
The MOS Pack ( at Amazon) comes in two colors, black or gray. It's made from a tough, woven, 1,000 Denier nylon. It has a more premium look than the Hedgren Junction ($63.00 at Amazon) , but it's not quite as classy as the much pricier Booq Cobra Pack . Like the Hedgren, it has orange accents; apparently, they're in right now. The pack has a padded back, and YKK black plastic zippers.
There are a lot of sub-pockets here. On the outside face, there's a long horizontal pocket and a vertical one with five pen loops. There's a waterproof water bottle/umbrella pocket on the side that expands into a pouch inside the backpack. Inside, there's a padded glasses pocket; a zippable passport pocket; an internal smartphone pocket; a battery pocket; a bunch more pen loops; a 10-inch tablet sleeve; a 15-inch laptop sleeve; four cable clips; and a sort of fabric cable tube that goes down from the laptop sleeve to the bottom of the bag. A fabric carrying loop at the top is the finishing touch.
While the pack as a whole isn't water-resistant (the zippers are the weak spot), you can buy a $10 waterproof hood for it, which is a great idea. The bag's reinforced bottom is water-resistant enough to sit in a puddle without water seeping in.
Power and Conclusions
The star of the show is the built-in power strip nestled at the bottom of the bag, the MOS Reach. The Reach has one three-pronged AC port and two USB-A ports, and an AC cable that extends out a wide pocket of the bag to plug into the wall. The idea is that you can plug three devices into the plugs in the pack, then plug the whole pack into the wall to charge them.
But it's awkward to plug and unplug things in the bottom of the bag, and if you want to keep the bag closed while charging your devices, the top isn't big enough to close around some 15-inch laptops when the power cord is plugged in. I'm also not convinced that this is a better solution than just throwing a $24.95 PowerCube Original USB into your bag, if the problem is not enough outlets. In terms of charging your gadgets on the go, the dedicated battery pocket also falls short, because it's too deep. My 12,000mAh Anker battery pack got lost in there, making it difficult to plug and unplug cables.
The MOS Reach also makes the MOS Pack noticeably heavier than other bags, at 3.1 pounds to the Hedgren's 2.3 pounds, or the Ogio Commuter 15's ( at Amazon) 2.4 pounds. You can remove the power strip, of course, but that's one of the main reasons to buy the bag.
If you're looking for a highly organized laptop backpack, the MOS Pack has more pockets, and a more rugged construction, than our Editors' Choice, the Hedgren Junction. But I think the MOS Pack's basic charging proposition is a little awkward, so I still prefer the lighter, slightly less expensive, more battery-focused Junction. And the Ogio Commuter 15 still ranks highly for folks who primarily carry books rather than gadgets, as it has one large pocket rather than many sub-pockets and pouches.