Carl Friedrik Core Carry-On Review

When you get down to the core of travel, you have to decide between a bag you carry on your body and one that rolls along next to you. There are pros and cons to each. Travel backpacks, duffles, and daypacks let you keep your hands free so you can eat at a street stand on the way to your hotel or pay your subway fare without worrying about your bag rolling away. On the other hand, rolling carry on luggage or checked suitcases don’t weigh you down as you wait in line through customs or while standing in line at the airport gate. Which is better? That’s for you to decide, but what we can help with is which specific bag you want. And if you’re in the market for a rolling carry on bag, you may want to check out the Carl Friedrik Core Carry-On.

This hard-sided carry-on size suitcase has swivel wheels, a telescoping handle, and minimal internal organization. We carried it onto four flights as we headed to and from Jamaica for an eight-day stay at a resort. And, spoiler alert, we had to cram some extra gear inside while waiting to check a larger bag that was quite close to being overweight. So how did it all work out, and should this bag be rolling carry on luggage that you consider? Let’s get into the details and find out.

External Components

The Core Carry-On looks similar to the Carl Friedrik Carry-On X, in that both have German Makrolon polycarbonate exteriors with leather detailing. We dig the vertical ridged design and think it gives the suitcase a very polished and professional look. It’s holding up pretty well after spending a week on a hotel floor and being shoved into and pulled out of the overhead compartment on four flights, with just a few minor scuffs and some faint sunscreen fingerprints on the Navy colorway to show for it. If you take this somewhere tropical, you’ll want to know that sunscreen or other oils on your fingers will leave slightly dark marks on the material, but you have to look closely to see them. A disclaimer to say that applies for the Navy and, we’re presuming, Black colorways, but we’re unsure how smudges will show on the lighter Sand colorway.

However, even though we’re pretty sure we grabbed at least one carry handle with dirty hands at some point, the leather is not showing any signs of wear, which is great. It’s used for a carry handle on the top and the right side of the bag to make it easier for you to shove it into the overhead bin or carry it up a flight of stairs. The handles slightly extend when you pull them to help you get your hand underneath and retract when you’re not using them to lay flatter against the bag.

There’s also a plastic telescoping handle on the back side of the carry on. It extends by pressing a button on the top and pulling it up. Once you reach the end of the first extension, you can stop the handle at any point until you reach full extension to find the right height, which we appreciate instead of having to choose between too short or too tall. The few spots of branding on the bag are on the three handles, which all have Carl Friedrik debossed on them; there’s also CF printed on the zipper pulls, but that’s it.

The adjustable handle makes it comfortable to roll alongside you, as it does on “silent” Hinomoto wheels. There are four sets of two wheels that can rotate in all directions. We had no issues with it over any surfaces or bumps in the road, and the handle is also sturdy enough to use if you have to raise the Carry-On up onto a step or two along the way. Neither the wheels nor handle shakes or rattles as you make your way to your boarding gate, which we appreciate. Airports are noisy enough without adding bag noise!

What will make noise are the metal zipper pulls if you don’t click them into the built-in TSA-approved combination lock on the side, but there’s no reason not to do so: it helps to keep your bag from accidentally unzipping as it rubs up against other items in the bin, even if you’re unconcerned about the security of your gear inside. The lock is near the leather carry handle on the right side of the bag, which is fairly convenient for access, though your mileage may vary as to whether you’d prefer it to be on the top instead.

While the zippers are unbranded, they work well and don’t stick anywhere along the track, so we have no complaints. Like many options that click into built-in locks, they have large pulls, which makes it easy to open and close the bag.

Despite being over the dimensions of more than 70% of major airlines, we had no issues fitting it into the overhead bin of Delta Airlines’ planes. Some of the planes required carry ons to be placed flat and some went in sideways; it fit easily either way. However, be sure to check the dimensions of the company you’re flying before showing up and expecting to get on board a stricter airline or be prepared to be asked to gate-check your bag.

Fit Notes

As we’ve already alluded, Carl Friedrik has style, and we dig the aesthetics. But looks alone are not enough to make a bag worth recommending. We’re happy to see it holding up through travel with only minor scuffs, scratches, and smudges. So, if you’re looking for a good-looking bag, you can be sure that this one will be that for you for quite some time.

Because it’s a clamshell-style bag with no external pockets to add weight to one side or the other, it stands quite easily on its own and never tipped over at the gate. It may, however, roll away from you on an incline or if you bump it with your knees. That’s a point in favor of how easily the wheels spin and roll in any direction, and runaway bags can be an issue with lots of rolling luggage, so we’re not holding it against the Core Carry-On. We’ll take a bag that occasionally tries to escape over one with wheels so stiff that they stay put but take extra effort to move through the airport.

Since you can stop the handle adjustment anywhere along the way, we never have an issue finding the right fit, no matter who is using it.

Inside The Carry On Luggage

Since there are no secondary pockets on the Core Carry-On, it’s time to jump inside.

The main compartment opens clamshell, so it does take up quite a bit of real estate to pack and access your gear. Depending on the size of the luggage rack in your hotel room, it may not fit and there’s a good chance that you’ll have to open it on your floor to unpack. You could use the bed, of course, but you probably don’t want to after the wheels have rolled through who-knows-what on your way from home to the airport to your final destination. We didn’t.

Usually, it’s at this point that we tell you to make note of which side is the back before opening it because that side is often less locked down than the front. The front of many (dare we say most?) hard-sided bags includes a zippered panel holding gear in place so that it doesn’t fall out when you move it to open or close the bag.

When you open up the Carl Friedrik Core Carry-On, however, you’ll see the same zippered panel on both sides. That allows you to open it up from either direction without worrying about anything spilling out. The openings are about an inch away from the edges of the bag and each soft fabric panel includes a zippered mesh pocket on its front for flat gear.

Inside, the space to pack each side is open, so we find it best to use packing cubes, pouches, and toiletry bags to wrangle all the gear inside. However, while the ability to open the bag from either side is nice, there are a few caveats to its usability.

First of all, the handle channel takes up a lot of space on the back side of the bag, so you have to be creative when packing it. Also, if you overpack this side (say if you have to cram gear in unexpectedly because your checked luggage is overweight), it takes more effort to push down the telescoping handle because more pressure is placed on the channel.

Also, each panel is about an inch below the zipper, and you can’t overpack the sides to take advantage of that space or you’ll find it difficult to close the zippered panel. That means you’re giving up 1.5-2 inches of capacity in the bag, though, which can translate to at least a few liters of packable space. So, while initially we were intrigued by the ability to lock down both sides, we were disappointed in practice.

It also means that if you need to reach inside to pull out your 3-1-1 bag, for example, you’ll have to open it all the way; you can’t just squeeze your hand into the top and shove something inside or pull it out. Likewise, when we had to throw in more gear at the last minute, we ended up leaving the zipper panel open in order to fit the extra gear, which then led to spillage when we opened it up at home.

All in all, if you dig open space with minimal organization, and you’re a minimal packer, you can’t go wrong with this bag’s aesthetics and premium features. We love the handle and the wheels, we just wish there was a way to better use the wasted space inside.