Alite Designs Ochiba Pack

I bought the medium sized black version of this pack to use for school and for outdoor activities and so far it's been awesome. I am very small (just shy of 5'2" on a good day) so many packs are way too big and bulky looking on me but this one, while still a little long for my torso, is perfect. I am in graduate school so I schlep around a ton of stuff all the time, and this pack holds an impressive amount of my junk without looking "poofy" or overstuffed at all. I can shove a 13" laptop, its charger, my phone charger, several folders of notes, a clipboard, a pen bag, a makeup bag, my graphing calculator, an umbrella, my checkbook-sized wallet, and a few granola bars or whatever I'm munching on for study fuel into this pack with ease. It handles it all in stride and is stylish to boot, with side straps to hold everything in width-wise and keep my stuff from jostling around, and a back panel that is a wonderful shade of goldenrod-yellow.

Now the gripes (and the reasons for 4 stars, instead of 5): laptop compartment could use a little more padding, no outside pockets for stowing cans of soda/water bottles, etc. and the straps--at the top near the grab handle/loop they seem to be angled in rather sharply so that much of the weight of the pack rests on the inner edges of the strap nearest your spine. Not exactly comfortable, but I suspect that this has something to do with my small size rather than the pack, which is probably designed for larger people. The stock photo on this page shows a yellow butterfly embroidered logo patch but the pack I received has a bear (see the alite designs homepage--this must be their new logo) instead. No biggie, I'm not a butterfly girly-girl anyway. Just a heads up.

Last thing...I live in Seattle and the waterproofing on this thing is amazing. Water just beads up on the fabric and can be brushed away easily once I'm inside a building. I love this thing to pieces so far and am very glad I purchased it.