Alpha One Niner Evade 1.5 Review
If anyone remembers the halcyon days of home theater in the mid-90s you might also remember the magazine Stereo Review. I loved Stereo Review. I had a subscription for a few years before I switched, probably at age 11 or something weird, to Stereophile. While Stereophile was worried about wooden knobs that replaced your “loud” metal knobs and speaker cables the size of firehoses, Stereo Review did incredibly detailed reviews of reasonable audio equipment. The turntables, which Stereo Review made fun of, were measured for Wow and Flutter (which, now that I think about it, sounds like something audio folks made up). CD players were fetishized for their “pure” sound. And the receivers from Denon, Sony, Pioneer, and Onkyo were reviewed in massively complex reviews with measurements for a page and half and ten pages of text. These reviews were daunting because of how complex receivers are and I can only imagine how much effort they took compared to something like a CD player or, geez, a pair of headphones.
Packs are the receivers of the EDC world in terms of reviews. They are just HARD to review. While they are not anywhere near as complex as a mid-90s receiver, they pose a real dilemma for reviewers. Because most of us don’t use a pack for work, in order to get meaningful information about they carry, work, and last, we have to use them for a long time. That old saying about a month of Sundays comes to mind. I don’t want to get pack, carry it for three days, and say things about it. You buy a pack because it is supposed to be durable and comfortable over a long period of time. How can you assess that in three days? You can look at the material and see if it is good and it if is something that has lasted in the past, but even Cordura changes over time. Some lasts for a long time. In other packs it just gets pilly and holds dirt. So they only solution to reviewing a pack is to have very, very long testing period.
In the case of the Alpha One Niner Evade 1.5, the testing period has been well over a year. In that time I have carried it as my day pack on about two dozen day hikes, about half of which were Scout hikes for my youngest, so not terribly strenuous. I also took it on two annual camping trips as my only pack. I then took it on a work trip where it was my briefcase replacement. Finally I took it on three vacations—two were car vacations and the third was a cross country airplane trip to the Pacific Northwest. While in PNW, we did a hike at the foot of Mt. Rainier and the Evade 1.5 came with me. That is a lot of time to spend with a piece of kit, but it has finally given me enough information so that I can write about the pack with some sense of knowledge. All of this leads to a simple conclusion—the Evade 1.5 is a superior piece of kit. It also led me to one more complex conclusion—the design and materials and philosophy of use for packs has dramatically changed since I last really got into packs with the Tom Bihn Synpase. Packs are better now. They have better designs. They have interesting materials and methods of construction. And, despite the trend in the rest of the world going in the opposite direction, they are exceptionally good values. Let’s get into the Evade 1.5 review. Its been a long, long time coming. If you want to take a look at my early impressions, here is a post about that.
Here is the product page (which has an announcement about the Evade 1.5 Full, this pack, being on its last run…though there will be other versions of the Evade 1.5 in the future…packs have long review periods, I guess). There were quite a few variants, both in color and iterative changes. There was a Evade 1.0, then an Evade 2.0, then this pack which had two variants itself—the LITE and this one, which is the FULL. The FULL version has a laptop compartment with a suspended sleeve for your precious electronics. The LITE did not. There is a Carryology collab version, which uses the FULL design. The Evade 1.0X is currently up for preorder. Given how good this pack is, they would be very much worth tracking down. Here is a written review of the Evade 1.5 on the always excellent The Perfect Pack website (pack folks still do written reviews!). Here is a video review from the also good Danny Packs YouTube channel. Here is my review sample, purchased with my own money and mine to keep:
Quick Review Summary: No lie—a great do everything pack.
Design: 2
Helmie Ashiblie is the founder of Alpha One Niner and he designs all of their bags. He is a vet and has his finger on the pulse of the community. Additionally, virtually every pack he has released has received acclaim and awards. The Evade 1.5 and the newer pack the Whitley both won Carryology’s Everyday Carry Bag category in their annual awards. Helmie also regularly updates his designs with new features that the community requests, hence the Evade 1.5 FULL vs. the LITE. By listening to what people want and being small enough to pivot to meet those needs, Alpha One Niner has consistently made superior kit. This bag is no different. Think of the Evade 1.5 as a hard use day hike bag with a laptop compartment attached. Here you get an excellent full zip main compartment AND the best designed laptop compartment I have seen.
Fit and Finish: 2
After more than a year of use and quite a few different hikes and trips, the Evade 1.5 looks almost unused. This is because of a combination of impeccable fit and finish and absolutely perfect materials choices. There are no stray threads, no misstitched components, only tight, even lines, crisp stitches, and nicely finished buckles, straps, and clips. Even the velcro inside the pack is error-free.
Carry: 2
With a good suspension system, padded straps, and ventilated and padded back, the Evade 1.5 carries well. I was concerned about the suspended laptop sleeve throwing off the weight distribution, but having taken my laptop on all but the day hikes and the two camping trips, I am pleased to report that the Evade 1.5 still sat nicely and worked without a problem. Even with heavy loads on steep grades, the Evade 1.5 sat well and was easy to carry.
Materials: 2
With a nice mix of Condura, velcro, and a huge run of shock cord, there isn’t anything new or novel here (no Dyneema, for example), but there is nothing bad here either. Think of this as the Sebenza 31 before the upgrade to S45VN steel—the design is really the the star here with perfectly fine materials.
Accessibility: 1
So the compression straps are kind of weird in that when they are clipped they make it hard to fully open the pack. A lot of packs do this and it is inexplicable to me.
Ease of Packing: 2
The main pack is huge and opens fully thanks to a 3/4 zipper path. The organizer pocket opens quite wide as well. The tech pocket is equally nice, with a fully padded and suspended built in sleeve for a laptop and another unpadded and non-suspended sleeve for stuff like a tablet, or, in my case, an Amazon Kindle. I can really stuff this pack, thought I have not had enough time to find all the tricks and hacks that I have for my PFII from Maxpedition. The Evade 1.5 is significantly larger than the PFII, but carry nearly the exact same.
Pockets/Organization: 2
The organization pouch is well laid-out and it can be changed as the panel is velcro’d in place. There is a full MOLLE panel in the main pouch as well. The sunglass/quick grab pocket is awesome. Finally, the configuration of the tech pouch is the best I have seen. Suspended laptop sleeves are must.
Snaps/Buckles/Zippers: 2
YKK zippers with nice but not ridiculous zipper pulls, excellent buckles and clips, and a well-laid out run of shock cord the Evade 1.5’s theme of good, solid materials continues. As with above none of these are new, proprietary, or unique, but they are all well used and fit the design impeccably.
Belts/Straps: 1
The shoulder straps here are excellent and the sternum strap is good as well. I also like the grab handle a lot. The luggage passthrough is clever and unobtrusive, so why the 1? Its not the compression straps, I already deducted a point for that. My problem is that the waist strap is an accessory. With a pack this long, even for a medium sized guy like me, I want both a sternum strap and a waist strap to really lock the bag in place. I get that the pack is very inexpensive compared to the competition, but asking people to pay $23 or $22 dollars more for something that every pack, even the cheaper ones, include for free is a bit silly. Even with the sternum strap, the Evade 1.5 still costs significantly less other similar small batch, high end packs, so Its hard to complain too much.
Modularity/Expansion: 2
There is simply no way to test all of the ways to improve and change a pack, as my PFII has been changed, added to, and use hacked many, many times since I originally got it. So this category is hard to evaluate. That said, with the MOLLE, the shock cord (which has already come in handy for jackets and the like), the compression straps above the water bottle pouches, and the velcro organization panel, there is a lot of different ways to change and use the Evade 1.5. I imagine, based on a year of use, and more than decade of use of the PFII, that the Evade 1.5 will be just as useful and hackable as that pack is.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Very Low
Packs are known for being fidget friendly. The Evade 1.5 isn’t different in that regard.
Fett Effect: Very Low
Condura and nylon don’t show wear.
Value: Very High
At $195 the Evade 1.5 is about half what you’d pay for a pack from TAD or PDW and the quality and design is at least their equal. There are other small boutique brands that made similarly priced and similarly nice packs, but nothing is straight up better for less.
Overall Score: 18 of 20
If I needed just one pack for every use, lugging a computer around, a day hike, or a week long trip, the Evade 1.5 would be my choice. Fortunately, I have other, specific use bags and of course they perform better, but not by much. I used to think that the idea of a computer sleeve on a day hike bag was dumb, but having used the Evade 1.5 on both hikes and commutes, I can say I like the versatility. It does add a bit of bulk, but because of its superior design its not to bad. I am also grateful for the water bottle pouches. For a while it looked like all “serious” bags were going to the Camelbak route with a pouch, but apparently people realized that pouch is disgusting and virtually impossible to clean. These pouches serve other purposes as well—holding long irregularly shaped items that are laced through the compression straps. The Alpha One Niner Evade 1.5 Full is a superior bag and if you can find one on the secondary market go for it. If not, waiting for A19 next release isn’t a bad idea. Their stuff is great.
Competition
The Tom Bihn Synapse 25 is a clear competitor, both in price and size. I think that pack is one of the very best I have ever used and I would still recommend it if you didn’t want the tactical look that the Evade 1.5 has. Its not as tactical as something like a Maxped, but it is not the Gray Man look at that taken over the pack market. I have owned (but not reviewed) a few TAD bags (you can guess why) and the Evade 1.5 is clearly better. I haven’t tried the PDW pack but it is more expensive than this pack. The Mystery Ranch Urban Assault that I reviewed SIX years ago (man time flies when you have a blog that is nearly 14 years old) is still a unique option that is hard to compare because of its unusual design. Its not as intricate or detailed as the Evade 1.5, but it is a bit cheaper. In all, I think the Evade 1.5 sits nicely next to the Tom Bihn Synpase and picking between the two is a matter of taste and not choosing the objectively superior option.
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