Review: Osprey Quasar & Questa Daypack

Both the Quasar and Questa fall under Ospreys 24/Seven Series which are designed to “bring superb organisation, comfortable carry and Osprey outdoor inspired design to everyday companion daypacks.” Big call. Lets see how the bags fared.

Tech Specs

For 2014/15 Australian Summer the 24/Seven range has had an overhaul with the addition of women’s specific styles and tweaking of their features.  Both bags are constructed using a combination of 420D nylon packcloth and a 420 nylon ripstop in the high wear areas.  Key features of the bag include side stretch mesh pockets, front panel organisation pocket, removable 20mm webbing hipbelt, laptop and tablet sleeve plus more. Even with all of these features, the bag is still a very reasonable weight of 930g for the men’s and 790g for the women’s.

On the trail and street

These bags have been used on a recent holiday in Central Europe and touring around Iceland for 4 weeks. The 1^st thing you will notice when you open the bag is the copious amount of pockets, usually I’m not a huge fan of lots of pockets, but in this case they all made sense, are well placed and are used consistently.

The internal organisation pockets are very handy when in transit

In the past I have used hiking daypacks for overseas travel and have found their bulky harness to be both and asset and a hindrance. However the harness on the Quasar and Questa tucked away into the side drink bottle pockets through a sneaky little hole to get it out of the way while in transit or around town while it was supportive enough for light day walks or when you picked up a few things at the shops.

The Questa has a women’s specific harness which includes narrower and shorter shoulder straps and a slightly shorter back length. My partner commented that these differences fitted the female torso much better than men’s or “unisex” bags usually do. The side compression straps are also handy in making the bag less bulky when wandering around town and the bag is not full.

Final Word

The Osprey Quasar and Questa daypacks are both great travel day bags. Lots of handy pockets, tuck away hip belt for when you’re maneuvering around the plane or public transport and more than adequate harness for general travel with the odd short walk thrown in. Once back home these have turned into the work commuting bags so they are likely to get plenty of use over many years.