ALPAKA Metro Backpack Pro Review

What do you look for in an everyday carry bag? Weather-resistant materials, easy-to-use organization, a comfortable carry? With separate compartments for a laptop, accessories, and everything else you’d want to bring along, the ALPAKA Metro Backpack Pro is designed for urban commuters.

We liked the smaller ALPAKA Metro Backpack, so we tested the Pro traveling to and from work in and around Detroit to see how helpful the organization was and how comfortable it was to wear daily. With twice the capacity, would we like it as much? Let’s find out.

External Components

You can get the ALPAKA Metro Backpack Pro in one of two materials: Axoflux 600D or X-Pac. Well, OK, three different materials, since the Olive Green colorway uses X-Pac X42 and the Black is X-Pac VX42. We’re testing the Black X-Pac this time around, though we had the green Axoflux for the Metro Backpack. We definitely find the X-Pac to be the stiffer and crunchier material between the two.

Whether you want black or green, Axoflux or X-Pac, you’ll have a water-resistant bag beefed up with AquaGuard YKK zippers to protect your gear in the front and laptop compartments from the elements. We got caught in the rain several times while testing this bag and can assure you that the bag repels moisture quite well, keeping everything inside dry.

The main compartment features a fabric welt instead of AquaGuard zippers for weather protection, which works well for protection. However, the stiff material fold of the welt somewhat impedes access to the bag, as it’s hard to push out of the way as you open the zipper. The zipper also gets stuck around the corners—once again, due to the fabric covering. On the other hand, the zippers have Hypalon pulls that are easy to grab, so at least you can get a good grip as you try to open and close them.

Like the Metro Backpack, the Pro has a very minimalist exterior, with no visible branding on the front. There is a small Hypalon tab on the bottom right with the ALPAKA brand name on it; that’s it.

At the top of the bag is a lightly padded carry handle. It’s wide and deep enough to fit your hand through easily, yet it doesn’t stick out from the top of the bag. We’ve mostly been using it to hang the bag on a hook at the office, and it’s positioned close enough to the back panel to work well for that. Using the handle to pull the bag from the back of a vehicle is also comfortable.

There’s a simple webbing strap running vertically down the middle of the back panel to slide the bag over the handle of rolling carry on luggage. The bag will sit sideways when you do that, but the front pocket opens with a vertical zipper, so just make sure it’s facing up when you use it.

The Metro Backpack Pro has a slightly more comprehensive harness system than its little brother. That makes sense when you’re taking a 12L bag up to 24L, though. The back panel still features two panels of padding covered with mesh for breathability and comfort. The shoulder straps include the same padding and mesh, with the soft fabric wrapping around the insides of each strap to make them more comfortable against bare skin. However, the Pro also includes a magnetic sternum strap that clips to shallow loops on the inside of each strap. While you won’t get as minute adjustment as you would if it were on a sliding rail, the sternum strap is removable if you don’t want to use it. We appreciate that since you don’t always need the extra support when carrying less, however, it’s nice to have if you stuff it full of heavy gear.

Another thing to mention: there are built-in strap keepers on both the shoulder and sternum straps, which we appreciate, even if our cats don’t. In other words, they help minimize dangling, which makes the bag look sleeker than it might otherwise. The straps also each feature one attachment point where you can clip a carabiner or one of ALPAKA’s HUB system clips. More on those later.

Fit Notes

As we’ve alluded to, the ALPAKA Metro Backpack Pro is quite comfortable to carry. The harness system can definitely keep up with the 24L capacity, yet we don’t find it overkill. Taller and smaller users alike find that it fits their frames well, something that’s not always guaranteed.

ALPAKA designed the bag for the daily commute, so we’re not surprised at the minimalist design choices. While the X-Pac material looks technical, the Black colorways blend into the background if you want to carry something subtle to work. The Axoflux material looks softer and perhaps slightly more professional, but we don’t think you’ll look out of place carrying this to the office in either colorway or fabric. It goes without saying that it’s also a good choice for travel since it doesn’t stick out in a sea of travelers and includes a separate laptop compartment so you can pull your device out on the plane without digging into the main compartment as you had to with the smaller Metro Backpack.

Inside The Backpack

There are a few other places to put gear other than the main compartment, and, since we were just mentioning it, we’ll start with the laptop area.

The zipper to enter that zone is located behind the carry handle and includes two heads, so you can open it no matter which side of the bag faces you. It opens halfway down the bag, and you’ll find soft black fabric along the back panel when you open it; that’s lining the 16-inch laptop sleeve to protect your device from scratches. There’s another sleeve in front of this one to hold up to a 13-inch tablet, and we’ve also found it a good spot for a Bluetooth keyboard if you carry that instead of another device.

Along the left side of the back panel is a small pocket for items you want to quickly access yet have concealed, like a wallet or passport. It also fits a phone if you’d prefer to keep it there since there isn’t a specific quick-access pocket near the top of the bag for it like there is on other travel daypacks.

Then, the front compartment opens with a vertical zipper along the right side of the bag, allowing you to access it with the bag still on your right shoulder. That feels a little bulky if you’re a smaller user, but it lets you grab things from the sideways-facing pockets since they will then face upright. Toward the bottom of the bag is a long ribbon-like leash with a MagLockz key clip at its end.

You’re meant to hook the D-ring to your keys once and then just clip them magnetically to the strap when you want to stow them away. This doesn’t work well if you share keys with another person, as opening the D-ring takes more finger strength than most of us here wanted to put forth more than once; however, it works well if you want to set it and forget it. We’re honestly not sure why this D-ring seemed so tight. We’ve used them on other ALPAKA bags, as well as with its HUB modular system, and have not had an issue, but both this key clip and the HUB Tactical Clip we got to use with the bag are super stiff and challenging to open. Or this tester has just gotten weaker hand strength since the last time she tested ALPAKA products.

Returning to the front section, it features four sideways-facing slip pockets into which you can slide a travel mouse, small toiletry pouch, pens, stylus, phone, wallet… you get the idea. There are two wide and two pen-sized slots and extra space in front of them where you can simply toss other gear that doesn’t fit in the pockets.

While you could slide a pair of sunglasses inside one of those pockets, especially if you have a protective case, there’s a spot in the main compartment that works well for them. When you open that section, you’ll see a zipper mesh pocket at the top of the front panel. Since it’s attached up out of the “crush zone” where you’d stash other gear, we found it a good spot for sunglasses, although fighting the fabric welt to get in and out of the main compartment can get frustrating with the X-Pac version of the bag. We’d say that perhaps it’s something that might break in, however, our experience with X-Pac has shown us that, for better or worse, it holds on to its structure through lots of use. Most of the time, that’s a pro, but sometimes that rigidity is a con.

Below the mesh pocket are two large slip pockets. The word “slip” makes them sound slim, but they’re not; they both have quite a bit of horizontal depth, with the one on the right slightly larger than the one on the left. Their horizontal and vertical depth allows you to use it as an internal water bottle pocket. Since the interior lining is 200D ripstop Axoflux material, which is water-resistant, and since your laptop and tablet will be in a completely different section of the bag with the Metro Backpack Pro (as opposed to the smaller Metro Backpack, which has the laptop sleeve in the main compartment), we have no problem using it that way. We had no trouble fitting either a standard Hydro Flask or an Owala coffee tumbler (both of which are confident won’t leak) in there nicely to give you an idea of the size you’re working with. The other pocket is slightly shallower, horizontally, and we find it a good spot for reading glasses in a case, a slim pouch, or something else that’s skinny and tall.

Flipping around to the back panel, you’ll see three rows of webbing, separated into three loops each. These are there so that you can connect something with ALPAKA’s HUB accessories, like the Tactical Clip we mentioned earlier, for easy access to your gear without rummaging around on the bottom of the bag. The nice thing is that they lay completely flat if you don’t use the HUB system or don’t need to hang something with a carabiner, yet they’re available if you can use them. We hung a tech pouch using the HUB Tactical Clip, making it easier to grab a cord when recharging a laptop. When we weren’t using it, there were times that the pouch got buried under other gear, so we can see the draw.

Don’t despair if you haven’t invested in the various clips in the system, though; they lay so flat that we don’t ever catch our gear on them when sliding it in and out in daily use, so it’s really not an issue and doesn’t impact the bag’s performance. It just may enhance it if you like the modularity.

In between, there’s a fair amount of space for other gear, with more on the bottom and less as the bag narrows to the top. We fit pouches and an extra layer, along with a book at times, though it depends on how many of the pockets you’re using. Putting gear in every pocket and hanging HUB accessories on the modular straps fills most of the available space, so if you want to use the organization, you’ll sacrifice some capacity. But the reverse is also true, so you can use it how you’d like.

So if you’re looking for a durable, weather-resistant bag for your everyday commute, the 24L ALPAKA Metro Backpack Pro might be a good option. You’ll just have to decide if you need that level of organization and whether you prefer the X-Pac’s more technical look and feel or the softer look and feel of the Axoflux.