Able Carry Max

“FWIW I'm on the hunt for a Dragonfly myself (either a 30 or 36l, but leaning towards 30l) and it's a bag I've been curious about for a while, but have also thought that it wouldn't be a good fit for me. What I did was I bought the Able Carry Max, which is a beautiful bag, and it turned out that it just didn't have the volume I needed; it doesn't pack that much more than my 24l Aer City Pack Pro, so I returned it so that I could get a bag that packs usably more than my Aer. Hence my realization that I'll of course need to compromise if I want to one-bag travel \*and\* fit my bag under an airline seat. This lead me to the Dragonfly, since my research indicates I should be able to pack usably more into it than my Aer and, really, the layout of the Dragonfly seems well judged for a lightweight travel bag. I don't know how helpful this is to you, but maybe it provides some added context. Regarding what you get for spending $300 compared to $200, then generally you're probably getting higher quality materials and/or better/more advanced solutions. This is better to deal with on a bag-to-bag basis I think, though. Again FWIW I recently bought a Moment MTW 17l backpack which has been discontinued and MTW was selling them discounted at $50. The listed price was $130 for reference. This bag is a steal at $50, I think, and $130 seems kinda reasonable for it. As I moved over the stuff from my Aer City Pack Pro (currently $239 on Aer's US site) it really set the Moment bag into context. First thing you notice is the lovely and beefy grab handle up top on the Aer, made of seatbelt material (which I am a sucker for), and then the thick and firm padding on the shoulder straps. Contrast this with the slim, simple webbing grab handle on the Moment and how the shoulder straps are much slimmer and with less and lower quality padding. The exterior material of the Moment is simply put not very nice and attracts hair and lint like crazy. People have different feelings regarding X-Pac, but I think there's no argument that the VX42 of the Aer is leagues above the material of the Moment quality-wise. At list the difference between the bags is $109 and I don't think most people are down with paying $239 for a backpack, but to me this difference is absolutely worth it. That doesn't make the Moment a bad bag, as I said for $50 it's a steal. For $130 (which is not far off from what I actually paid after international shipping and taxes) you're probably better off with maybe a Fjällräven Räven, but the Räven not having a sternum strap is a dealbreaker and the MTW at least having three quarters opening is important, as I prefer panel opening bags. Sorry for what has turned out to be a wall of text. Again, hope it was helpful to some extent.”