23 out of 23 people found this review helpful.
The hard-working pony of my travel gear
Date of Review: Jan 15, 2008
The Bottom Line: My BL barely fits into this Sac.
Sometimes the smallest items are the hardest-working and most useful, sort of like those ponies they used to use in the mines. That's how I feel about this product.
I recently posted a review on the Eagle Creek Small Pack-it Sac, which is handy for all manner of travel Stuff. But Pack-it Sacs come in several sizes, and the Eagle Creek X-Small Pack-it Sac is one that I've had for years. Surprisingly enough, it's every bit as handy as its larger Quarterhorse brethren, so here goes.
Before I start, though, please note that the large Sac in the photograph is NOT this one. I can't really tell, but I think it's the one off to the right. The picture doesn't really show the sizes too well.
FEATURES
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My Eagle Creek X-Small Pack-it Sac measures 7?" x 3?".
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It has a pleat at the bottom that is about 2" wide when fully extended and enables the Sac to stand upright.
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It's made of LinkSeal™ mesh, which is a colored fabric mesh embedded into a polyurethane film that makes it waterproof.
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The sturdy black zipper is strengthened by a strip of durable black grosgrain, to keep the stitches from tearing out of the LinkSeal mesh.
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It has a carry clip at one end.
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It comes in red, blue, black, and a sort of chartreuse-lime green. Mine is black.
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It sells for between $6.50 and $8, depending on where you buy it.
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It's available in travel, sporting goods, and outdoor stores like REI.
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For more information, go to http://www.eaglecreek.com/accessories/packing_sacs/Pack-It-Sac-X-Small-40099/.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT
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Oddly enough, as small as it is, this is a very handy size. I use mine for my manicure set. I've also stuffed a small sewing kit into it for longer trips, as well as aspirin and band-aids, the lipstick and blush I carry with me at all times, and some of the odds and ends that otherwise would drop to the bottom of my purse and never be seen again.
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It's easy to load, thanks to the pleat at the bottom. It's hard to put 3-dimensional things into a 2-dimensional bag, but that pleat makes this sort of 3-dimensional, so my lipstick doesn't cause a bulge and pucker.
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It's so shallow that nothing can get lost in it. That may not seem like a big issue, but I find myself schlepping a lot of twiddly little things and spending way too much time digging around for them. With this shallow size, they can't get lost.
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The textured mesh makes it easy to find when I'm digging in the depths of my purse. Even though the mesh is embedded into the LinkSeal™, it has a texture. So I can always find it.
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The clip at the top corner makes it easy to attach to a daypack or camera bag or whatever you carry. And that makes it even easier to find, because it's always handy. On my trips to Antarctica in 2007, I used it for lens cleaning stuff and clipped it to the outside of my daypack so I could get to it easily.
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It's easy to keep clean. I can either wipe it out with a damp tissue or sponge, or turn it inside out and rinse it under the tap.
WHAT I'D CHANGE IF I COULD
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For some reason, the people at Eagle Creek decided not to put the zipper across the very tippy-top of the Eagle Creek X-Small Pack-it Sac. Instead, it runs across the top of one side, about half an inch from the top. That creates a corner at each side of the top that my nail file can get caught in.
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I wish the bottom corners weren't so... square. They could have been slightly rounded without sacrificing the stand-up-ability of the Sac, and I wouldn't be cleaning dust and debris out of them all the time.
SUMMARY AND VERDICT
Like its bigger brother, the Small Pack-it Sac, my Eagle Creek X-Small Pack-it Sac is very well-traveled. I've taken it on all my trips for the past five or six years, and it often rides in my purse when I'm home. I find myself transferring things in and out of it because I wasn't smart enough to buy more than one - that will be remedied soon. This little pony is a hard worker, sturdy, and reasonably attractive. The only reason I'm not rating it five stars is because of the placement of the zipper. Four stars.
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