Burton Sleyton 18L Packable Hip Pack Review

If you’ve ever watched Transformers, you’ve definitely heard the catchy theme song, “Transformers, more than meets the eye.” That’s what immediately came to mind the first time we used the Burton Sleyton 18L Packable Hip Pack. While it’s not exactly a robot in disguise, it is hiding a packable daypack inside.

Yes, it looks like a massive hip pack, but unzip the top flap, and boom—a wild daypack appears. When you’re ready to travel hip pack style, just dump everything out, roll the daypack up, and zip it away. The material is extremely lightweight and the packed daypack doesn’t feel heavy or add much weight. Like most products that double as two items, however, the Burton Sleyton Packable Hip Pack doesn’t excel at being both a hip pack and a daypack. In our experience, multifunctional gear rarely does. For us, it worked best as a hip pack. That said, it still works as a daypack, albeit with a few flaws. We’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of each carry mode in this review, but first, let’s look at the materials.

Materials & Aesthetic

The Burton Sleyton Packable Hip Pack is made out of Ripstop Nylon with a silicon coating. The hip pack itself is made from a 100D Ripstop Nylon while the daypack is made with a thinner 70D version. The thinness of the fabric is what makes the bag packable and lightweight. Imagine trying to stuff a heavy-duty travel backpack made of Cordura into a pocket on top of a hip pack. That probably wouldn’t work out too well.

Now, this thinner denier of material doesn’t mean the pack isn’t durable. In case you’re not familiar, Ripstop Nylon helps prevent any rips or tears from getting larger. It has a distinct grid pattern, which is what stops the rip. Get it? Ripstop? Luckily we didn’t have to find out exactly how good its rip-stopping abilities are since we didn’t get any tears on the bag during the month that we used it. In addition to Ripstop Nylon, this pack also features YKK zippers and Duraflex hardware—all stamps of a high-quality piece of gear.

At the time of this review, the Burton Sleyton Packable Hip Pack is available in three colorways. This includes Summer Green Ripstop, Lunar Grey Ripstop, and True Black. Burton is not playing around with any false black colors. We opted for the True Black version because black fits in anywhere, whether it’s city streets or the backwoods.

Besides the color, the general aesthetic looks pretty sporty in both hip pack and daypack mode, like you’re getting ready to hit the trail or climb a mountain. Either way, you’ve got a breathable, comfortable, lightweight bag at your side (or back) to keep your snacks, water, jacket, and other outdoor essentials. Mostly snacks, though, because we know how important those are for any adventure.

Hip Pack Mode

As previously mentioned, we feel the Burton Sleyton Packable Hip Pack works better as a hip pack than a daypack. Maybe that’s the reason it’s called a packable hip pack and not a packable day pack. We think it works best this way because it has a decent structure with a large capacity that makes it convenient on days you want to explore without a full-blown backpack.

Now, before we get too deep into it, allow us to acknowledge the elephant in the room—yes, we know how polarizing hip packs are. Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, though, there’s no denying how convenient it is to have all of your essentials right at your hip while traveling. Who wants to stop and take their backpack completely off just to grab their phone or water bottle? And don’t get us started on how useful hip packs and sling bags are when going through airport security.

All that said, if you are vehemently against getting your ‘80s throwback on, this hip pack may not be for you. This is a big boy and it sits pretty far out from the body on your hip. The good thing is that it can accommodate a ton of stuff. It can hold a 21oz Hydro Flask, a jacket (packable or not), a large notebook, and snacks with space left. On the front, there is a pocket that makes a good spot for smaller items like your phone, wallet, or keys. Just watch out, because it will get tight if you have too much packed inside the main compartment. We struggled a few times to get an iPhone 12 in here with our packable jacket and water bottle inside.

The hip pack features a decently sized hip belt with a small amount of padding. We found it comfortable to carry, but it’s also slightly inconvenient for daypack mode. You see, the hip belt is adjustable for a snug fit, but it’s not removable. This means when you switch into daypack mode, it either sits up against your back or you’ll have to wear it. While it works fine for the hip pack, the belt looks a bit clumsy in daypack mode and feels unnecessary.

Daypack Mode

When it comes to packable daypacks, lightweight is the name of the game. As we mentioned earlier, the thin fabric is what makes it packable in the first place. This usually means a lack of padding and structure, so we weren’t surprised to see both of those things missing on this bag. What is slightly frustrating with this hip pack/daypack combo, in particular, is that the hip pack itself isn’t packable, so it will always need to be filled.

When using this bag in daypack mode, the hip pack acts as a separate compartment at the bottom. This means that if there’s nothing in the hip pack compartment, the bottom of the bag will slump down under the weight of whatever’s inside the main compartment above. This can cause it to have a slightly uneven shape while you’re wearing it, but is most noticeable when you sit it down on the table or floor. It looks kind of depressing, like air being slowly squeezed out of a balloon on your birthday.

This can still be a problem even if you’ve packed a few small items in the hip pack compartment like your phone or keys. Since it’s the only place on the bag with any pockets or organization, it seems like a good place to put your daily essentials while in daypack mode. However, we recommend larger and slightly firm items here if you want to give the bag a little structure. Even something like a packable jacket would help.

This lack of structure also didn’t make us feel particularly safe using the daypack to carry a laptop. Since there is no padding, there’s nothing to protect it. Just use a laptop sleeve, you say? Of course, this solution makes sense, however, it depends on the size of your laptop and sleeve. We used this pack with a 13” MacBook Air, which sat pretty close against the top seam of the bag. When we added an Incase Compact Sleeve with BIONIC, it was a tight fit, sitting directly up against the zipper. The Incase Sleeve is fairly slim, too, so this probably wouldn’t work with a bigger, thicker laptop sleeve. If you generally travel with a tablet, then no worries. If a large part of your trip involves remote work with a laptop from a coffee shop or poolside, however, it’s something to be aware of.

Inside the daypack compartment is just wide open space. It can accommodate quite a bit, and we usually carried a jacket, books, water bottle, notebook, laptop, and snacks with room to spare. The lack of structure and thin material actually comes in handy here since you can stretch it a bit to fit more gear.

Carrying the Burton Sleyton Packable Hip Pack was a breeze thanks to the comfortable shoulder straps. They have a thin layer of stretchy mesh that makes them breathable and soft even when the bag is packed to maximum capacity. Overall, the bag proved to be durable, comfortable, and useful. We’re just waiting for the day that a gear brand makes a hybrid product that works well both ways.