BAGSMART Blast 28L-38L Extended Mesh Carry On Travel Backpack Review

At under $100 at the time of this review, the Blast 28L-38L Extended Mesh Carry On Travel Backpack offers an interesting value proposition for those who need a ton of space for their travel gear. Having wedding cake-like layers of pockets at the front, a separate laptop compartment at the back, and a spacious main compartment inside, it checks all the right boxes for a travel backpack.

However, the budget price is apparent in the bag’s overall form. The shape and how it carries are perceptively saggy, while the compression straps aren’t as effective in taming that as we were hoping they’d be. We’re also not a fan of the built-in shoe compartment, and the rather spartan harness system. Do the downsides outweigh the savings? Let’s find out.

External Components

The Blast’s fabric is a relatively simple nylon fabric with a weatherproof coating. We’re guessing it’s DWR coating since that’s pretty common among bags, and there’s no perceptible residue to speak of, which backs up our theory. The fabric has a subtle ripstop pattern disguised by the Fir colorway we chose. It’s not too flimsy or thin for daily use, but this isn’t the type of fabric we’d typically bring on an outdoor adventure. The bag is, overall, on the lighter side, with not that rigid of a structure, so the body has a lot of give and expansion available once you start packing.

If there are potentially subpar components on this bag, it’s the zippers. They’re unbranded, which isn’t necessarily what makes them flimsy, but it’s not an encouraging sign. In testing, we could pry some zippers open by simply stretching some areas. For example, the top pocket’s zipper partially unzips when we pull the bag by the nearby grab handle. Fortunately, this happens only to the extent that zippers are about an inch or two open, not enough to fully open the compartments. Also worth noting is that there are some loose threads around the zipper tracks’ stitching, though not anything too bad (they’re leftover from the manufacturing process, we presume).

On that note, there’s a top and right side grab handle. They’re both passable as handles, with some padding to make them comfortable to hold. For symmetry’s sake, we might wish for a left-side handle, but we’d rather have the water bottle pocket that’s there, which is big enough for a 40-ounce water bottle. The elastic does a decent job holding onto bottles. That said, we erred on the side of caution and also looped our bottle’s handle onto the nearby compression strap.

The compression straps are here, so it’s a use it or lose it type of deal. They’re primarily for cinching the bag’s weight down and preventing your gear from sloshing around. However, arguably more importantly, the compression straps help keep the bag within carry-on compliance restrictions. As mentioned, the bag gets rather bloated when packed to the brim.

The harness system is relatively simple for a bag in the 28- to 38-liter range. Both the shoulder straps and back panel have only light padding, and they’re also covered in mesh to keep air moving when it gets hot. A sliding sternum strap accompanies the shoulder straps, and there’s also a luggage pass-through on the back panel—and that’s pretty much it, really.

In all honesty, this is a level of equipment we’d traditionally see on daypacks, as their smaller capacities merit a more basic approach. However, a simple yet well-designed harness system can still deliver a sufficiently comfortable carrying experience. Unfortunately, those who’re very particular with their backpack’s fit and adjustment will find very few amenities here.

Fit Notes

Unsurprisingly, the Blast’s limited harness system can only do so much when it has to tame this much bag. The weight just saturates the padding’s cushioning, leading to a notably saggy feeling pulling backward. You can mitigate this by using the sternum strap to pull the weight forward and tightening the compression straps as much as possible.

We’re not bag designers, but our experience tells us that a couple of load lifters or even a hip belt would’ve been helpful. On that note, tightening the adjustment of the shoulder straps and raising the bag to a higher position on the back makes the carry feel more uncomfortable. Ultimately, we settled for a looser fit and resigned ourselves to a perceptibly saggy carrying experience.

Inside The Backpack

While the Blast is lacking in the harness system department, BAGSMART definitely covers the difference in the number of secondary pockets it has. The first of these is a zippered front compartment. Its stretchy material gives it a ton of expandability for all the everyday carry accessories you may want to stuff inside. That said, the more you pack into this pocket, the likelier you are to breach carry-on compliance restrictions. This pocket is just outside the compression straps’ coverage, so we recommend careful consideration.

Right behind that pocket is a side-facing zipper pocket. Apart from having a slightly wider coverage, this pocket faces similar space constraints, so we’d limit what we store here to mostly flat items, such as winter gloves, a well-folded buff, and a notebook.

Around the back is a hidden security pocket for your most valuable items, like passports, transit tickets, travel documents, and your wallet. It’s on the back panel, so it’s hard to pick your pocket without you feeling it, thus making it more secure. On the other hand, this also means storing anything too bulky or oddly shaped affects the back panel’s flatness and, thus, comfort.

Nearby is a side pocket, which we found ideal for a smartphone. The pocket’s size is ideal for such, but its positioning also makes it easy to reach for and grab gear when you swing the bag around. For everyday use, this could mean a set of keys you use to unlock doors, or, for travel, it’s a great stash spot for all the gear on your person that has to go through the TSA’s scanner.

At the top is a brain compartment of sorts with a hatch-style opening. The open area is another good spot to stash everyday carry items and has a zippered mesh pocket for loose items. In testing, we found this compartment ideal for storing tech accessories. We use a lot of those while we’re on the plane, and this compartment’s top positioning makes it easy to reach when we stash the entire bag underneath the seat in front of us.

At the back is a laptop compartment that fully opens clamshell-style. Now, an opening like this is understandably too much if you just want to take your laptop out in the middle of a flight. Fortunately, you can open the top just enough to undo the hook-and-loop tab and pull it out without having to do all that. The built-in laptop sleeve is big enough for a 16-inch MacBook Pro, but there’s no false bottom for added protection. On that note, if this bag’s getting checked in, we’d recommend using a separate laptop sleeve to supplement the built-in padding. Otherwise, making sure the entire bag remains carry-on compliant is very important.

On the opposite side of the compartment are two stretchy mesh pockets, which we didn’t find super useful in testing. Firstly, they’re located at the bottom, so they’re tricky to reach if you’re in a hurry. Secondly, they butt up against the laptop sleeve way too much for our liking, so bulky items such as charging adapters and power banks can put undue stress on the adjacent device. They’re good for stashing extra cables you might need. Instead, we opted to use a separate tech pouch.

The Blast may be a backpack, but its main compartment opens like a duffle bag. This gives you a wide opening that isn’t all that dissimilar to the clamshell style a lot of luggage and other travel backpacks use. Once inside, you’ll find a mostly barren space devoid of compartmentalization. On the one hand, this may come as a disappointment for those who want built-in organization options. On the other hand, those with a similar mindset who have already invested in their own set of packing cubes and organizers will feel right at home.

Mind you, the built-in hold-down strap is still an option for those who still want to pack their clothing directly inside the bag. It does a pretty good job of doing that since it has a cross pattern with decent coverage. Still, we recommend using a good set of packing cubes with the hold-down strap to save yourself a few liters of space and keep the weight centered. There’s also a zippered pocket on the flap if you want to store a few extra accessories, such as bits of toiletry or socks.

All that said, we can’t seem to shake the Blast’s overall saggy vibes. Using the compression straps to further tighten the bag’s weight doesn’t do much. Overall, they only hold things together but don’t condense as much as we want them to. On that note, there’s also an expansion zipper going around the bag that gives you an extra 10 liters of space, boosting it from 28 liters to 38 liters. Fortunately, we didn’t need to use it as the base 28-liter capacity was plenty to store a long weekend’s worth of clothing.

Another feature we didn’t find useful is the shoe compartment with a hatch-style opening at the bottom of the bag. Unfortunately, like a lot of shoe compartments built into backpacks, using it takes away a ton of usable space from the main compartment. In other words, if you pack an extra pair for your trip, you’ll have to plan the rest of your packing list around it, which isn’t ideal unless your shoes are your utmost priority.