Customer Reviews The North Face Recon

Honestly I love this bag it has nice room and it looks good I would definitely buy again

It's a quality product for sure. Great zippers. All that. However it's heavy and storage is smaller than I expected. Probably because of the dedicated, zippered laptop sleeve. If you want that then okay. But I sent mine back for a refund.

I haven't used the backpack yet but the design is beautiful

Great

This item is wonderful and is of high-quality material and works as described. The only suggestion would be to be a slight redesign in order for the pack to stand on its own.

Overall very solid backpack replacing my older Surge north face. I love the aesthetic and quality of materials. Very deep excellent side pockets for my 46oz yeti. Only gripes is compared to the surge there is significantly less usable space (obviously a smaller pack). The pocket w the mesh organizer is only halfway deep as opposed to full clamshell opening. Due to this, it stuffs up very quickly and protrudes significantly into the top half of the main compartment which reduces usable space. Also I wish the laptop compartment was more like the surge w the extra organization flap. Overall happy w it though and like the look, function, and silhouette

This is a pretty good backpack overall. I use it to carry laptop/books/notebooks around my neighborhood and on short trips. It has two deep water bottle pockets and two smaller compartments for holding stuff like pens, chargers, jackknife, sunglasses, etc. That said, this was bought to replace an earlier edition of the same pack, and the design changes aren't good ones. The front closed pocket zipper aligns too closely with the front open pocket, making access harder. Plus the front closed pocket zipper is now set too low, wasting a lot of upper space and making it easy for things to fall out.. Overall there's less room for various sundries. I also miss the front bungee cord, now gone. And the choice of colors is poor.

Overall I think this backpack is amazing and well thought out. The key factor for me was it had a laptop and ipad sleeve. However, my ipad doesn't fit the sleeve (even without my iPad case) It's too tall. I have the 2020 11 pro. This is a big con to me because this was my selling point so I didn't have to cram my iPad in with laptop in one sleeve.

Product is amazing

Excellent bag. High quality, color was exactly as pictured and beautiful out of the box. BUT... had to return it. Not big enough for our middle schooler. The fad seems to be to never touch your locker, so it has to hold everything. If I re-engineered it, I would make it 34L, dividing the added space between the main pocket and an additional pocket for laptop chargers and accessories.

Sturdy and good design. Perfect for traveling and school.

I like everything about it except the mesh netting on front wish it was little different material.

I use this backpack for work. I like the shove-it pocket and the new shoulder strap design but miss the pockets on my Surge this pack replaced due to my surge needing repair. I went with this pack over the new surge due to the new front pockets on the surge being not very useful. The new NF packs are a step back in design. Hard ring around the bottom, pack does not open enough to get in, pockets intrude on interior, and the top of the pack area is wasted. The designers could do much better.

Bought this pack for a trip to Switzerland. Great carry-on size for the airlines, fits a lot of gear, comfortable, and has great pockets. Unfortunately some of the stitching on the rear of the pack on the laptop sleeve was missed, but I should be able to put a few stitches in it to keep the seam sealed up. Overall a great pack, good size for what I needed, and fits well under the seat and in the storage bins of small aircraft.

I love my backpack's design and durability.

I'm a stagehand and needed a new bag with several compartments. This bag is exactly what I needed and good quality. My only critique is that I wish the zippers opened the bag a bit wider.

Bought the Recon to replace a 10 year old pack that was pilfered and didn't realize what improvements had been made in that time. My only beer is that I had to buy the "men's pack to get the Navy blue color I wanted. Since this is a unisex product, I don't even know why there is a men's or women's version. All specs for the pack are the same. Just feature all colors and let people choose. Haven't filled it and hefted it to capapcity yet.

I bought this as a school backpack for my 2nd grader. It is not very wide, so it didn't work for even a second grader's school materials. It was not wide enough to fit his binder/trapper keeper (do they still call them that??)

smaller than the older version for sure. but love the new material and it is very comfortable

I use this bag everyday, and it is a nice pack. The quality seems good, but it's not as spacious as advertised in my opinion. I have a camelbak rimrunner 22L that fits more than this 30L pack. I think it is mainly due to the fact that the front pockets take up space in the main compartment, it keeps it streamline but doesn't allow you to use every cubic inch. Otherwise seems to be a good pack.

little smaller than anticipated but still good for hikes

The only complaint I have is that the pouch on the front has asymmetrical stitching. It's off by like a quarter of an inch. My OCD is coming out.

I use this for school and I like the computer pouch in the back. I wish it was slightly bigger but it's a good size.

I use this as a school backpack. It is great and looks really good. I could use a little more space and room but overall it's a great backpack!

I use this backpack for college. I carry my laptop,tablet,pens and other various things with me everyday. I enjoy the reinforced water bottle holders and love that there are two on both sides. The colors are great and there are many to chose from. I love the zipper pulls that are on the bag as well. The only downside is that the pocket with all the little pockets is only a half pocket. When you add a decent amount of things to that pocket it begins to impede on the pocket behind it and I wish it was a full pocket on its own to solve this issue. It also impedes the ease of the zipper for this particular pocket.