Transcription:

Hey folks! This is TJ with BestLeather.org and today we’re going to be taking a look at the original Saddleback Leather Tank Backpack and the newer Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack. We’ve also got the new tobacco leather here.

So why would you want either one? The Tank is discontinued. You can get it cheaper on eBay, between $350 and $400 as opposed to nearly $600 for the new Squared Backpack. There are some comfort differences and capacity differences and I want to show you those real quick.

With the original Tank backpack, you’ve got a piece of leather that goes around it from the top down to right here in this seam. This seam is about half an inch and it is pretty brutal on your lower back after a while of walking. This backpack is more than a year old. It’s been used every single day and you can see it right here where it’s formed to the back, but this hasn’t broken in at all. It’s just still as brutal as ever. Also, the shoulder straps—these little ridges right here—those can get uncomfortable after a while. It’s also a bit narrow so these edges, if you have a wider body, can rub and dig into your skin as well.

On the other side, with the Squared Backpack, is an update and evolution from The Tank. You’ve got one piece of leather that goes from this flap all the way around to right here. Now there’s no seam here and you can see, as I can push on this, that it’s pretty flexible. This will mold to your back quite nicely. There’s a nice patina right here. There’s also a piece of foam embedded in the leather. So as far as your lower back goes I have absolutely zero complaints. I’ve carried this hiking for hours, I’ve taken it through airports, long trips, and it’s been very comfortable. The shoulder straps are also a lot thinner and are a lot simpler. They’re more comfortable; they’ve broke in very quickly. I think it’s just a better design, a simpler design than these more complex, heavy-duty straps on the Tank.

However, I will admit that there’s a real classiness to The Tank with these straps and with the rigidity of the design. Even though it’s got some flaws, it looks really sharp. So if you’re willing to put up with those things, I think it’s still a great backpack and it was designed with durability in mind for sure. You can see massive seams of leather going on here.

The Squared Backpack isn’t designed any less ruggedly but there are some good things that really make it more functional. It’s also bigger. It’s got about 1,400 cubic inches of internal capacity whereas The Tank has about 900 cubic inches. So you’ve got more capacity and the flexibility makes it a little bit easier to work with.

You can see right here with this strap—this is something that I would change if this were my design. I haven’t used these straps at all since I got the backpack because I don’t see a reason to. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe somebody can point out in the comments what the real purpose is for and what they use it for.

It seems to me that this front flap totally encloses that main compartment. I’m not worried about water or anything getting in there, especially when you cinch it down to the lowest level. But with this flexibility here, it folds a little bit. You see how it’s crinkling right there. But when you put that flap down, sometimes it closes a little bit crookedly and it looks like it wasn’t made correctly. I think they should make this a little bit stiffer but that’s the only thing that I would change thus far.

Pockets-wise, usability, they’re pretty close. Identical pockets—you’ve got one up front, two in the sides, you’ve got slots where you can fit stuff in, pens and whatnot, between the pockets and the main compartment, pockets inside the main compartments here and then two here. They’re a little bit larger on the squared backpack because of the larger dimensions than on The Tank but they’re still very good.

I think this is one of the best backpacks that you can buy on the market if not the best. I’d really like to see another backpack that can compare. We’ve got an article coming out on the Marlondo backpack versus the Saddleback Squared Backpack and it just really doesn’t compare. There’s a lot of thought that’s gone into this. For working with the limitations that leather has, I think they’ve done a really good job.

I like the new tobacco leather also. You can see we’ve got some patina going on right here. It looks fantastic. It’s definitely more rugged than the chestnut—chestnut being my personal favorite—but it looks good and it’s wearing well. This one doesn’t really have any scars on it that I can speak of, but I like the used look of it. It’s fantastic.

So we’ve got pros: It’s (Tank) sharp-looking, it’s cheaper, but it doesn’t have quite as much capacity. Whereas this (Squared) has got more capacity, it’s more expensive. You’ve got this flexibility up here that I don’t really get.

So that’s about it. Thanks for watching. We’re going to be doing some more videos here upcoming and hopefully some giveaways. So subscribe and stay tuned. Also, I’d like to hear from you guys with these backpacks and what you think of them, especially people who have had The Tank and have upgraded to the Squared Backpack. What do you think about that?

I know some of you are considering this; you have Saddleback Leather Tank Backpack and are considering the Squared Backpack. I would encourage it. I think it’s a good switch. The pros are worth it. Hopefully that is helpful to you. Have a great day!

Check out the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack here on the SBL website.

Search for Saddleback Leather Tank Backpacks on Ebay.

This is a continuation of my ongoing review of the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack which I am doing in video form. The text below is the transcript of the video. You can see/read episode one here.

–

I have been out hiking for a few hours now. You can see the sun is starting to go down. It’s really gorgeous down here in the middle of this stream bed. I wanted to give you some details on the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack.

comfort on a long hike

It’s been impressive so far, the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack, especially compared to the last Classic Backpack. These straps here are a major improvement over the classic. You notice when I bend this shoulder strap there’s no giant nodules. Those nodules would have made things pretty painful when you’re hiking or going for long distances with the Classic Backpack, the tank. But this, there’s a lot less of that leather scrunching up. And this leather is also a lot softer. It’s a much more comfortable shoulder strap.

They’ve got some padding right there that they’ve sown in (on the bottom of the backpack for your lower back) and it is a massive help. I have not noticed, really, any discomfort except for a shoulder scapula injury that I’ve got but unless you’ve got that sort of injury you shouldn’t be having much of a problem.

Leather products aren’t known for being ultra-comfortable. This is no sophisticated hiking backpack. I’m using it outside of the normal realm in which people would use it, but I wanted to give it a good test.

I’ve got about 15 pounds of gear in here with food and water for a couple of hours of hiking and it is doing really well as far as comfort goes. And obviously there’s plenty of space to get more stuff in here. You could travel for a few days out of this backpack. Over time you will get soreness in the tops of your shoulders. I think some of my pain is from a lack of hiking lately.

The build quality is just showing itself to be quite immaculate. They have really done a great job. You notice that this front flap of leather goes around to the back and all the way to the bottom. This is all one piece of leather, which is just remarkable. That’s a large piece of leather. In the classic there is a seam and this right here, along with this extra piece of padding—you can kind of see an outline there—is much more comfortable. No seam digging into your back and much more flexibility.

compared to the Classic Backpack “Tank”

I’ve got a friend with a Classic Backpack (we’ll be comparing these two backpacks soon) and he’s used his for a year now or more than a year —this back area has formed to his back given enough time. But with the added flexibility of this Squared backpack, and extra width, I’ve noticed that the Squared Backpack just forms far more easily to your back, much more easily than the Classic Backpack. So there’s none of these big seams that are digging into your back.

leather & the main compartment strap

The leather is just doing really well. You’ll notice it’s acquiring some scratches just from use. Another thing which is interesting is when it’s sitting up, because it’s not as rigid as the Classic Backpack. See how the top flap is crooked. That’s because of this strap adjustment here so you can close up the top. This is now more flexible than the Saddleback Leather Classic Backpack. And sometimes when the front flap is buckled over it it will sit crooked, depending on how you’ve got this top strap tightened down. So I don’t have it tight at all but I did want to mention that because some people have asked me if it was actually made incorrectly or if it was sewed crooked but no. It’s not sewed crooked, it just collapses the top of the main compartment a bit which makes the front flap buckle down crooked (as shown in the photo below).

UPDATE: I have since decided I do not like the leather strap on the main compartment since I cannot determine any good purpose for it. The front flap sufficiently covers the main opening so that water can’t drip in so I don’t know why one would want to tighten the main compartment up. It’s not going to make the backpack any smaller since the front flap is still the same size. The strap and the flexibility just makes that front flap crooked way too much of the time. I was going through a lot of my photos of the backpack and noticed it is crooked in a majority of them.

So yeah, the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack is doing well. I’ve got another couple of hours to go on my hike so we’ll see how she does. Perhaps I’ll have more thoughts. I would say, basically what they’ve done here is they’ve taken the classic and the benefits of it, the good pockets and what not, and they fixed all of the problems—limited capacity. It’s very narrow yet deep so you could put stuff way down into it and you kind of have to stack your stuff. Another problem with it was that seam on the back. That was a major comfort issue. And the shoulder straps. But I’ve think they’ve done a good job of fixing these problems.

conclusion

You can tell that there’s a lot of design and a lot of thought that’s gone into fixing those issues.

If you have any questions, feel free to put it in the comments and I’ll try and answer you on any questions that you might have for the use and comfort of it.

I hope you guys find this useful and if you have any  questions, feel free to be giving me a call. ‘Til then, I’ll catch you guys later!

Shop the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack

This is the first video review in a series reviewing the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack. The text below is the transcript of the video. You can see/read episode here two here.

Hi folks! This is TJ with Best Leather and for this review I’m going to do something a little bit different. I received a Saddleback Squared Backpack. Saddleback sent me one to review and I think I’m going to do some videos and walk you through what it looks like to live with it, to use it frequently, the pros and the cons—there are always cons when you’re buying something this expensive. Hopefully it will give you a really good understanding of why you’d want to spend so much money, nearly $600, on an item like this, or you wouldn’t.

So this is also a backpack with the new tobacco leather and there’s been some controversy as to the quality of the leather and whether or not Saddleback is saving money and not passing those costs onto consumers. So we’ll also take a look at the quality and see how that stacks up against some of the older stuff. I have access to a Tank Backpack, Saddleback’s classic backpack, and will be able to compare it there. So let’s dive in.

cost

This is the Saddleback Squared Backpack and I want to go through and show you guys a few details on it. This backpack retails for $582 and I’ll show you some of the features and reasons why it’s quite so expensive. The classic backpack was actually what got me into Saddleback leather and quality leather products elsewhere. I had a friend who had one and I couldn’t believe that it was $600. The more I researched into it, the more I realized it cost a lot to make these bags. I think there’s—maybe this is a little bit of a guesstimate – 12 square feet of leather here.

If you are looking at leather prices, you could be spending $100 just on leather, not to mention hardware and the time to make it. These people have to be craftsmen because there’s a very high level of precision required for leather working. You don’t want to waste this leather.

comfort

So let’s go into some of the details on this. I’ve had this backpack for two days now and so far it’s been a very enjoyable process. The first thing I want to show you is the straps. Now these straps are different than the Saddleback classic backpack straps. A little bit different design there. I’ll show a picture of the old straps there. The problems that they had was they were very thick, they were very padded and they would scrunch up so you can see how it’s scrunched up there. You’ll notice that those bumps there can get really uncomfortable. It’s worse on the old one. So that’s nice. Those are pretty comfortable straps, surprisingly. The first day that I was using it I was kind of stretching it and twisting with my hands to help it break in a little bit quicker, but it’s been very comfortable so far.

Another aspect that’s helping the comfort, as opposed to the tank, the classic backpack, is right here there was a seam. That seam would irritate your lower back if you wore it quite a bit and people would get pretty severe chaffing. So this is actually one piece of leather that just goes right around that corner. And that has not posed a problem whatsoever. Now I haven’t worn this for an extended period of time. I’m going to try and do some hiking with it. I’ll go out with 4 or 5 hours and see what kind of issues may come up but so far I’m really enjoying the straps.

Another detail on the straps is the flexibility and how easy it is to change the strap sizes. So on the old one there was all sorts of straps to undo, one strap that was very long and you’d end up with—if this is the old one you’d have layers and layers and layers of strap, a lot of extra weight. So they’ve really trimmed that down. These are very easy to change and adjust. It took me about 10 seconds to get it right for my size. So definitely the shoulder straps are very nice. I haven’t noticed any problems with them at all.

new tobacco leather

So the next thing, the elephant in the room for some people, is the new leather. This is the new tobacco leather. You’ll notice if I do a close-up here that it comes with kind of a patina. Now I like this. I like this patina because as much as the backpack looks used, it’s still in very good condition. The leather is just as strong as it’s ever been. I don’t notice any things that I would consider blemishes—deep scarring or anything like that. It’s just unique. You see stuff in leather that I think you should see. It’s not one mass-produced product and I kind of felt like the older leather that they were using; it looked like it had been coated in plastic. It didn’t feel that great. Well their tobacco was just kind of a muted yellow color. So this is kind of a more true tobacco and I quite like it.

Now like I said, there are no scars. Part of the controversy is that scars are decreasing the value of the product and Saddleback isn’t lowering the price of their products. I don’t think I can speak to that because I haven’t seen any scarring or anything on this. So maybe in another product we’ll get to check that out. But I’d say as far as the quality of the leather goes, it’s top notch. However, when I first got it, you’ll notice there are some spots here. Those are actually bug bites but when I first got them I thought, “Oh boy. This backpack has had water damage.” It hasn’t. These are just bug bites but it is something to note. If you’re looking to have a leather product that doesn’t have a unique character to it in the leather, something like the old tobacco, then you’re better served by going on e-bay or going on one of the Facebook pages and buying one on there. You can buy some really great, lightly used, older tobacco-colored leather. It pretty much looks immaculate when it comes. It takes quite a bit to wear it in. This looks very nice. I really enjoy this leather.

usability

So the last thing I wanted to talk about here was the pockets. Now when it comes to backpacks, Saddleback is I think one of the best in terms of options. You’ve got a lot of pockets. You’ve got 7 pockets total. You’ve got this one here and a matching one on the other side. This front pocket here will hold a small laptop. I don’t think I can get this off of my hand. There we go. Alright. So we’ve got this front pocket here and that will fit an 11” laptop, maybe a 12” and a mouse pad. That one’s from Urban Cow on Etsy. They did a great job with that. So you’ve got a lot of pockets. You’ve got one, two, three, four interior pockets. And I like this because you can really use this usably, every day. So if you’re going to class or you’re going to work and you’re looking for something that has a lot of class, a lot of style and is going to last a long time looking good, this is a good option.

new pigskin lining

I should also mention the pigskin. This is very interesting pigskin compared to what it was. It used to be very dark and I thought it looked rather inorganic. I think it had been treated, died, most likely. But this has a very nice, soft feeling to it. It’s not very rigid like the older pigskin. And I very much like it. You can see little spots, not only the hair spots. I’ll try to fix it so you can see there that there’s some little hair spots where it’s been de-haired but if we look carefully we can find a bit of scarring. I don’t know. I can’t tell if that’s a scar or not but there are slight, minor issues but that’s what happens when you work with leather and animals that run into fences and whatnot.

durability and weight

You can see we’ve got lots of rivets everywhere. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to tear leather that’s riveted together. I encourage you to try, but don’t get a hernia doing it because it is tough. This leather is thick and these are big rivets. So I don’t know what the world’s going to look like in a hundred years but I think if any leather product that I’ve seen so far is capable of lasting a hundred years, it would be the Saddleback products because they’re pretty much just over-engineered. That’s ridiculous. They’re using high-quality thread here, they’re double-stitching it. I think they’re going to do a good job of lasting. They are using hollow rivets and that’s so that you can apply them more easily. They go on with a foot press and these aren’t solid rivets. I don’t think that’s going to be a strength issue. If you had a lot of sheer force on these rivets it might be an issue but it shouldn’t be an issue at all with these. It also makes it a little bit lighter. Lightness is kind of an issue. Once again, it goes to pros and cons.

So if you want a really light bag, don’t get this bag. It’s 8.5 pounds or so which honestly I think is well worth the cost but carrying leather items there’s always pros and there’s cons. The pros are it looks really classy, it will last a long time, and you won’t need to buy a new item for very long. But the downside is you don’t want to get it stolen because the replacement cost is really high and it’s heavy and it can be a little bit bulky or awkward. You have to decide whether or not you want to put up with something like that in order to have a bag like this.

conclusion

So those are my first initial thoughts on the bag. I’ll be doing more as the coming weeks come up and hopefully you’ll enjoy it. So feel free to put comments and tell me what you’d like to see. If you have any suggestions on video editing or cinematography I’d love to hear them.

Check out the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack here.

Continue to episode two of the Saddleback Leather Squared Backpack Review.

For quite a while Saddleback Leather has produced one backpack, The Backpack. Now there are three Saddleback Leather Backpacks. Behold, the Simple Backpack.

This new creation aims differently than The Backpack at being a more casual and easier to use backpack. Instead of being internally strong it is more collapsable and moldable. This will lend itself to travel and the diverse demands of the “stuff” that may need to be carried. One of the downfalls of The Backpack, despite its beauty, is the difficulty in efficiently using all its space. Although the cubic capacity of The Backpack is greater, one can fit just as much  “stuff” into the Thin Briefcase because it is easier to fill the horizontally arranged compartments as opposed the vertically arranged compartments of The Backpack.

This bag will be popular with travelers, as Dave demonstrates in his video, for its flexibility, lightness, and capacity due to the simple interior design. It is to be hoped that this design lends itself to more efficient use of space then The Backpack.

Check it out here.

more film reviews

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