First, this is a typical Maxpedition product that features premium material and sturdy, high quality construction. But unlike most Maxpedition products which tend to stand out as very military or tactical looking, this Entity lineup is very subdued, normal, and low profile with no military or tactical overtones. Even the branding is very subdued and blends in well. Horrible elephant in the room: • The packs small size causes a lot of features to interfere with one another, be of limited use, or just not function well. It's almost like they did the original design on a larger product and just shrunk it. That's possible given this is the smallest of four bags in the Entity lineup. • The result is a product that I would only recommend for routine EDC use with a lot of qualifications, and which I would not recommend for CCW in any way, shape, or form. Outstanding: • High quality Materials and Workmanship • A fully Ambidextrous and very comfortable sling bag • Truly excellent (even amazing) organization capabilities with a lot of pockets and pouches and organizer features, and the ability to add more via hook and loop accessories • The "drawbridge: straps that can be used to prevent the entire from fully opening are very well designed and very useful while still giving full access to the main compartment • Very well suited for a tablet up to the size of a Microsoft Surface Pro and a full host of potential accessories Problems: • While there is a lot of organizational capability, it cannot all be effectively used at once because fully utilizing one feature, often interferes with or prevents the use of a nearby feature and because of the bags small size, there are a lot of nearby features ○ The worst part of this are the features that are layered on the sides of the bag - water bottle pouches then zippered organizer pouches under those, then under that on the inside, more organizer pouches • When all the organizational capabilities are used as best they can be, there is very little room leftover inside the bags main compartment. • The water bottle pockets are small and short and have no elastic or compression feature around the top so only suitable for small, disposable water bottles in the 16oz range • The magnetic closure flaps are too weak to be of any real use and mostly just get in the way (but they can be hidden out of the way and not used) • Because of the combination of design and construction elements, the zippers are all difficult to operate, often binding significantly which makes using them unpleasant • The zippers on the CCW compartment have no locking mechanism. The zippers here bind as well. The compartment is so small, it it only really suitable for a small single stack pistol and perhaps one spare magazine. These things combined with the small thin openings make quick access near impossible. So I just would not recommend it for CCW. In conclusion, I'd give it 5 Stars for Materials, Workmanship, Organizational features and a few other great features. But I'd only give it 1 star for its poor CCW capability, binding zippers, and features that interfere with one another. Overall, I guess I'd give it a 3 for my purposes, but depending on what is important to you, it could be closer to 1 or 5. I think it would be a far better product in a slightly larger size (perhaps 20 liters), and the larger bags in the Entity lineup may be great products. Unfortunately this is the only size for the sling bag version.
