Huru H1 Backpack Review

The H1 from Huru is a ridiculously useful expandable 24-40L bag known for its copy of the Mission Workshop Vandal design.

• Capacity
  • Zippered clamshell opening on the main compartment. Likely you’ll find a place you like to leave the zips for quick access instead of unzipping all the way when accessing the main compartment.
  • Main compartment has an extra zipper that expands capacity from 24L to 40L.
  • Rolltop thingy on the top has it’s own sack inside (some sort of coated nylon, waterproof-ish). Kinda weird because it doesn’t add that much volume, but it does provide a way to segment the main compartment.
• External Organization:
  • Front dual-access pocket. Spacious enough for a large hand. Great for a pouch.
  • Front top zipper pocket. Slightly larger than the previous. Zipper somewhat cumbersome due to front strap placed in front, but you can leave the zip on the one side
  • Side 15″ laptop pocket. Water sealed zip. Padded, not suspended off the bottom of the bag. Up against a nice and padded sturdy frame sheet inside. Easy in and out for a 15″ MBP.
  • Side water bottle compartment (slight insulating/protecting capabilities due to some padding or foam built into this pocket. ).
  • One pocket on each shoulder strap, just big enough for a card or fold of cash.
  • Optional rolltop to get you a few more inches of space vertically (but you’ll have to move the buckle around to make this work well because the top flap isn’t that long).
  • Rain flap pocket between top flap and shoulder straps. Could fit a few pens in there if you didn’t want the rain fly with you.
• Internal Organization:
  • Front panel has 3 zippered panels (two 3″ deep, one 6″ deep) sewn in with a liner material. YKK #5 zips.
  • Main compartment has a padded panel on the back with the ability to slide in a tablet or small laptop. 15″ MBP fits but it’s quite tight to get it in and out of (though feels slightly more protected than the laptop compartment, so some of you may prefer laptop here in transit).
  • Main compartment also potentially has the sac from the rolltop down in it’s space. Rolltop sac (yes, i’m calling it that) can also be tucked away behind a panel so it’s not in your way in the main compartment at all.
  • Main compartment you do see bundled material on both the left and right side of the bag… this is where the extra slack for the +20L expansion is stored.
• Materials & Build:
  • 500D Cordura exterior fabric coated on the inside with some PU coating likely. Feels great. I actually really really like the way the bag feels to the hand. Especially the front panel and pockets.
  • Custom-designed buckles, made from anodized aluminum and brass. Heavy. Clunky. But not without their aesthetic interest. The one you use the most is the sternum strap and you may hate it, but let’s be honest, if you like the looks of this bag you’re going to love it. Like cocking some fine tuned piece of metalwork. It feels pretty good. Just hope the feeling of the two metals scraping against each other doesn’t start to grate on you.
  • YKK #5 Aquaguard zips. Normally I like bigger zip sizes. But these all feel pretty great on this bag, actually. Zip pulls need to be a smaller paracord with one of those shrink-wrap thin rubber sleeves.
  • Stainless steel hardware (bags usually use plastic hardware). Slider grips are burly, which some of you will like, and others will hate. Burliness accentuated by the high texture webbing used. I kinda like it.
  • Nice touch on the handle. Burly webbing folded over.
• Comfort:
  • Straps are a semi-firm padding inside the main external material with some webbing and edges sewn in. Feels nice to the touch (padding could be a little stiffer).
  • Load lifters with another set of stainless steel grippy sliders. Nice to have lifters like these with bigger loads.
  • Shoulder straps have this G-hook way of trying to clean up and organize the straps. Might be right for some, others will likely disengage and have to customize their own straps their own way.
  • Back panel doesn’t have mesh, but it’s padded well and there’s a nice rigid frame sheet inside. Optional hip-pack provides some nice lumbar support.
• Other nice features:
  • Detachable sling/fanny pack as the hip strap. Works pretty well, actually. Great little sling.
  • Rain hood. Like, think Robin Hood, but with a bag design Huru may have stolen quite a bit from Mission Workshop. (Bad form.)
• My verdict:
  • honestly, a damn good bag. If you’re looking for expansion and a kinda tactical/street/technical looking bag, this one’s got a good thing going.
  • The story goes the Huru team ripped off the Vandal from Mission Workshop. So, many will feel bad supporting that kind of thing. You can tell by looking at the two bags that something like this clearly happened. The Huru team designed additional features and modifications from that Vandal baseline is what it appears from the outside looking in, but I’m not privy to any backroom conversations about it or anything… yet.
  • Damn solid bag, tho. I personally prefer its functionality to the Vandal’s.