I thought about putting Rover Pack Tech “Review” in the title of this post, but I don’t know that I have enough backpack bona fides to be a source of subjective truth on the matter. I have owned one nice backpack ever prior to this one and it came from the same company. The Topo Daypack I bought in 2013 is excellent. It has a minimal amount of wear and tear from regular use, but none in the places that count.
So why get a new bag? I have been traveling a bit more for work and fun lately and there were a few conveniences that were lacking in my 10 year old bag:
Easy laptop or iPad access
Exterior water bottle storage
Quick wallet and phone storage for going through the TSA
If you already clicked the link for the 2023 Daypack above you might have noticed that it checks the laptop and water bottle boxes now. But not the quick wallet/phone one and that was the deal breaker. So in steps the Rover Pack “Tech”, a bag that checks the boxes and has a slimmer profile width wise, which I like.
The colorways are limited and a little boring with the “Tech” version, but it was the only way to get the laptop side zipper. So I settled for a monolithic colorway to get a feature I am already using all the time. But check out the color options on the “Classic” model and daydream with me what could have been. Otherwise I extremely pleased with this new bag. There may be a zipper pull swap to add some color in the future and I need to move over the sternum strap before I start up Spring hiking.