Aer City Pack Pro 2 20 L Review

We’ve reviewed the original City Pack Pro and the City Pack Pro 2, both of which are 24 L bags. We also reviewed the City Pack 2 (sans “Pro”), which is a 16 L backpack. If you felt like 24 L is too big and 16 L is too small, well, enter the verbosely named, alliterative quasi-tongue twister, City Pack Pro 2 20 L. Henceforth referred to as “CPP2 20”.

Disclaimer: The CPP2 20 was provided by Aer as a sample for review. We’re grateful for the opportunity to review the bag, and we publish our honest takes, positive and critical.

Overview

• 20 L capacity
• 3-ish compartment design with a dedicated laptop compartment separate from the clamshell main compartment (this is what distinguishes the City “Pro” line from the regular City line),
• Multiple small to medium-sized external access pockets
• Single side water bottle pocket
• Side handles and luggage pass-through
• Available in Cordura ballistic nylon, X-Pac VX-42, and Ultra400X fabric

The CPP2 20 is, as you would expect, very similar to the regular bigger City Pack Pro 2 backpack. The most noticeable difference is that the 20 L only has 1 bottle pocket whereas the 24 L has 2.

Perhaps more surprising is that the CPP2 20 and the Travel Pack 4 also share very essentially the same design/layout, with the main distinction (apart from volume) also being that the Travel Pack 4 has two water bottle pockets.

While the City Pack Pro 24 L is large enough for a weekender trip, the 20 L is definitely more compact and still squarely in everyday carry like its smaller sibling City Pack. The 20 L is unique in that it brings back the small side quick access pocket from the original City Pack Pro, which tracks with its greater focus on everyday carry.

Organization

What I like:

• Retention of a dedicated laptop compartment, which has not just a padded/soft-lined sleeve for a laptop, but an additional sleeve on the opposing side for documents or just chucking your power brick inside. Between the two sleeves is still space for other flat things. The laptop compartment essentially has 3 areas to partition items.

• Standard clamshell main compartment with a stretchy sleeve on the backwall and two zippered pockets behind the front panel. Pretty much standard for a log of bags these days. As usual, I never stored anything in the bottom interior zippered pocket.
• The front top “hatch” admin pocket. While it only has one zipper, I find it simplifies the motion needed to access and open it. I like that I can just use one hand to open it completely, and fold down the flap to reveal everything inside. The admin organization is also simple/minimal enough to not be overwhelming, yet functional to actually stow and organize several smaller items.

• The side quick access pocket with key leash — really convenient to reach for my keys without taking off the bag. Plus, the zipper can be tucked in between the flaps so it’s barely noticeable.

• Having a large-ish zippered dump pocket on the front — great for a light jacket, a compact pouch, or snacks
• The fact that the top quick access pocket uses a stretchy material and doesn’t sag too much into the main compartment

What I don’t like:

• I wish the laptop compartment had a sleeve/taco-style pocket that kept items in the upper part of the bag, instead of the deeper document sleeve it currently has. While I store my power brick in there, it just sinks to the bottom and easy to forget that it’s there.
• The tiny zipper tab for the top quick access pocket. I do appreciate that it’s not so dangly as the other zippers, but it is a noticeably harder to grab and open, especially with the Aquaguard zipper.

Materials and Construction

What I like:

• As with most of Aer’s products, the bag feels well constructed and long lasting with high quality fabrics and materials
• With the Ultra variant, I like the hypalon zipper pulls — nice and grippy
• Good quality ripstop lining and stretch fabric (for the top quick access pocket that drops in the main compartment as well as the side zip pocket), that doesn’t feel like will tear or wear out easily
• Counter-pull hypalon tabs on the main compartment and front bottom zippered pockets, and zipper garages in a few key places
• The bag is well structured but not overly rigid. This applies more specifically to the Ultra and X-Pac variants.
• Horizontal luggage pass-through!

What I don’t like:

• The bag doesnt stand on its own when lightly or moderately loaded — you have to fill out the bottom with something dense, but books that lean forward won’t cut it; they’ll contribute to the pack tipping forward.

In this photo I have to lean the bag against the door frame. It’s loaded with a laptop, a Bible + notebook + pencil pouch in the main compartment, and some tech/hand sanitizer in the front upper admin pocket.

• Aquaguard zippers throughout the exterior. For the laptop compartment I think it makes sense, but don’t particularly love the extra friction they create especially for the top quick access pocket, which already has the tiny zipper tab that’s hard to grab.
• Similar to other Aer bags, depending on where you tend to rest the zippers, there can be a lot of long zipper pulls congregating in one place. Especially the top front admin pocket and the main compartment’s zippers. Not a big deal, just takes a little more effort to find the right zipper you’re looking for.

Neutral:

• The shape of the bag tapers slightly at the bottom, which means the footprint of the bottom of the bag is smaller than you might expect.

Comfort

What I like:

• The shoulder straps are wide, have nice closed cell foam, and underlined with soft mesh. The bag is comfortable to wear!
• The back panel itself is nicely padded and has a natural concave curve to it. It’s not stiff but it also doesn’t just flex/bend by itself.
• The top and side handles are padded and smooth and edgeless; nothing digging into my hand when grabbing these to maneuver the bag. Just note that the side handles aren’t centered along the height of the bag so they’re not for briefcase carry, more for hauling.
• Sternum strap is easily adjustable by sliding along a rail of webbing, and also removable. One side has a stretchy part and it’s on the non-adjustable side (win!). That means if you need to you can tighten the sternum strap more compared to if the elastic strip was on the adjustable side.

Neutral:

• Magnetic sternum strap — sometimes the two pieces clip together themselves, and when that happens it’s a mild nuisance to have to separate them before putting on the bag.
• The bag isn’t particularly light (around 2.5 lbs for the Ultra variant), but it’s also not as heavy as other bags with the same feature set.

Aesthetics

Pretty much all the Aer bags in the city and travel collection look the same. Same general curved capsule-like shape, same mid-line zipper across the front. I like that the branding on the City Pack series is more subdued with tags off to the side rather than front and center logos.

The choice of fabric makes a big difference in the aesthetic. Ballistic nylon has that classic, traditional office professional look, whereas X-Pac and Ultra gives a more technical, futuristic slant on the otherwise ordinary shape and zipper lines. While the Ultra is slightly lighter in weight and incredibly strong, it does get wrinkled and develop a worn appearance over time that ballistic nylon, and I think even X-Pac, does not develop. Some wrinkle-prone areas are already noticeably more crinkled relative to other areas.

The upper front panel and top panel betwen the quick access and main compartment zippers are more crinkled than other areas.

The available colors are all dark (black, navy blue, or olive), so there’s no bright or fun exterior colors. However, the X-Pac and Ultra variants have some brighter interior colors which are nice touches. Bright orange for X-Pac and a muted lime for the Ultra.

Summary

Just in the last year, the quality of compact everyday carry bags in the 18–22 L range has become quite competitive, and the CPP2 20 may be at the top for me. Its practical quick-access organization in combination with structured construction at a modest weight makes it so easy to integrate in life. The fact that you can get it in a special fabric like Ultra is pretty cool. Honestly, between the City Pack 16 L and the City Pack Pro 24 L, the CPP2 20 L hits a real sweet spot; I’d recommend it over the other 2 packs for most people looking for an everyday carry office bag.

Price ranges from $199 to $249, so the value is OK for a mass-produced backpack, but in the middle when it comes to comparable bags. Aer does run regular sales during holidays, so best to take advantage of one of those for a better value. For comparison, the EVERGOODS CTB20 retails at $270 for their regular solution-dyed nylon, the Alpha One Niner Evade 1.0 retails for $269 for the Ultra400 variant, and the CTactical CT15 Lite retails for $215 for the Ultra200 (shipping adds another $20 or so). I’m confidently guessing that Alpha One Niner and CTactical are smaller production studios compared to the quantities that Aer is producing so that’s something to bear in mind when comparing prices.

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